Moving beyond Competitive Advantage: A Rejoinder to Barney et al.

In response to Barney, Mackey, and Mackey (Barney, J. B., T. B. Mackey, and A. Mackey. 2023. “Why Has It Been So Hard to Define Competitive Advantage?” – Strategic Management Review), this essay clarifies my argument that ‘competitive advantage’ is problematic as a research concept in the field of strategic management. I propose that the strategy field should move beyond ‘competitive advantage’ to consider a value-based framework for assessing firm performance, incorporating returns to a holistic set of stakeholders.