Competitively Distinct Operations as a Key for Superior and Sustainable Business Performance: An Example from Walmart
提出企业要实现卓越且可持续的业务绩效，不仅需要可持续竞争优势，运营也需具有竞争优势，并以沃尔玛为例支持该框架。
Existing research on the resource-based view (RBV) has provided \nlimited evidence on how firms achieve superior and sustainable \nbusiness performance; this failure is because current literature \nde-emphasizes the importance of operations. This paper argues \nthat to gain and sustain superior business performance, a firm’s \nsustainable competitive advantage is not enough, its operations \nalso needs to be competitively distinct. Therefore, through unifying \nthe necessary conditions of superior and sustainable business \nperformance the paper presents a better understanding of \nthe RBV. The success story of Walmart, from existing literature, \nis considered as an example to support the proposed framework. \nThe paper concludes that the cost of operations, opportunity cost, \ncost of resources and possible output are the crucial factors in \nresource choice and operations decision to secure competitively \ndistinct operations. Finally, theoretical and managerial implications, \nresearch limitations and future research possibilities are \ndiscussed.