Competitiveness

The concept of competitiveness for both nations and businesses changed due to the globalization, the diffusion of information technology (IT), the high level of innovation, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the spread of concepts as corporate social responsibility (CSR), and sustainability. For nations competitiveness means focusing not only on short- and medium-term productivity drivers but also on productivity over the longer term in order to balance the interests of different groups of people, within the same generation and among generations. This means the need to go beyond the mere economic well-being including other factors that promote a high-quality growth. With regard to business, in the last decades, the interaction between sustainability and competitiveness has received considerable attention, changing the traditional point of view based on rivalry relations among companies, because of their product’s characteristics and price, toward an approach considering the importance of cooperation, networks, relations with stakeholders, and the ability to create shared value with society as competitive drivers.