Achieving Competitive Advantage through Building an Intelligent Organization with Technological Innovation: The Case Of A Chinese Enterprise

As the economy continue to grow dramatically, more and more Chinese companies are competing with not only "foreign invaders" in China's domestic market but also business giants in the global market. For a Chinese firm, having lower labour cost is no longer the best way to achieve and maintain competitive advantage (CA). On the other hand, technological innovation (TI) is widely recognized as the key to creating and sustaining CA. Therefore, the question is on how to improve the capability of TI. Based on the knowledge-based sustainable CA approach, through combining [1] building intelligent organisations model with TI, the aim of this paper is to investigate through a Chinese case study company on whether sustainable CA through TI and the relationship between improving TI and building an intelligent organisation can be achieved. Data is mainly collected through questionnaires and gathering data from databanks and archives. Key findings indicated that competitive advantage can be created from TI activities and that a flat organisational structure and efficient information system can help develop a learning organisation. Limitations of the research and suggestions for future work conclude the paper.