CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND LEVELS OF COMPETITIVENESS

Rivalry, competition itself, is essentially ancient to humanity, but the concept's rise to prominence dates back to the 19th century, a natural feature of capitalist economies, in the underlying marketplace, all essential activities take the form of competition. The concept of competitiveness, however, only entered the public consciousness in the 1980s, in connection with the activities of the Sectoral Competitiveness Committee set up by Ronald Reagan. In 1979, he published his academic paper "How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy", in which he identified the five forces that influence industry competition, providing a framework for conducting industry analysis and business strategy development. In the years that followed, an increasing number of academic works on the conceptual definition and empirical analysis of competitiveness were published. Among the competitiveness approaches, there are comprehensive analyses that look at the main elements and aspects of competitiveness in a general sense. In addition to comprehensive approaches, academic works identifying different levels of competitiveness predominate, with national and regional competitiveness being the most frequently highlighted on a territorial basis, and industry and firm competitiveness being the most frequently highlighted in relation to economic factors. There is no consensus on the relationship between the different levels.