An Assessment of the Concept of Competitiveness through Postgraduate Thesis Studies in Türkiye

The understanding of the concept of competitiveness and its transformation into a subject of research has become an interesting field both in practice and in theoretical frameworks. As emphasised in academic articles, textbooks, and papers, competitiveness also emerges as an evaluation and comparison tool in reports prepared for the analysis of local and regional areas, as well as in comparisons made at the global and national levels. In this study, we sought to investigate how the concept is approached in postgraduate programs, in which areas studies on competitiveness are conducted, whether the concept is addressed with a correct positioning, and what the method-output relationship is for the results obtained. It was observed that the concept is used in place of concepts such as ‘competitive advantage’ and ‘competitive superiority,’ and that the Porter Five Forces Model is predominantly used for the outputs obtained. It was also noted that the outputs are included in the recommendations related to the thesis topic within the context of competitiveness, and that these are mostly encountered in doctoral theses, while certain gaps and evaluations regarding competitiveness are not made.