‘Competitive advantage‘ is one of those terms that I have puzzled over. It is used so often that I know people believe it means something, but it is rarely defined in practice. Scholars have attempted to derive formulas for it, but do those formulas mean anything or do they just tell us in scientific language what we already knew? In other words, is it just a MacGuffin–a prize or goal that drives a narrative forward but isn’t actually anything at all?

On the other hand, if the term is meaningful, then how can one use ‘competitive advantage’ as a construct to make convincing arguments about the need for change? Several have tried, but those efforts have not always borne fruit.