ECONOMIC RENT AND FIRM'S COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

A firm's competitive advantage, which involves achieving above-average profitability, refers to economic rent, a concept developed by economic theory. Investigating competitive advantage from the viewpoint of rent seeking seems to be a special instance of the convergence of management sciences and economics at microeconomic level. The concept of economic rent may serve as a key which helps to systematise different views about firm's competitive advantage. Such an approach seems to be particularly useful in the context of advantage building in company networks. The article analyses the most representative conceptions of building competitive advantage of the enterprise, with special attention paid to the nature of the rent sought. The author presents the concepts of strategising and economising in advantage building. In the former case, she refers to industrial economics, Porter's theory, the positioning school and strategic conflict theory. Another group of conceptions is based on the resource approach. By analysing the phenomena of relationism and network, the article demonstrates that, at present, economic rents are syncretic in nature, covering a number of component rents which refer to traditional methods of creating economic rent. A basic problem is their appropriate integration as well as the right proportion of competition- and cooperation-oriented behaviour adopted by enterprises.