Opposite to what could be expected from the neoclassical economic theory, firms' performances present a wide heterogeneity. The strategy research tradition has concerned itself with the understanding, explanation and prediction of this heterogeneity. Competitive advantage is a fundamental concept in this effort. This research draws from previous studies on performance variance components to suggest an operational definition of the competitive advantage concept and a metric to measure it. The proposal is illustrated by an empirical study on results of 252 Brazilian companies from 1998 to 2001.
performance; heterogeneity; competitive advantage; variance components; Brazil
