Study on the Path and Mechanism of Evolution of Competitive Advantage of Chinese Auto Enterprises

Based on reviewing resource theory, social capital theory, organizational learning, and technological evolution and related theories, and analyzing of environments that auto mobile enterprises in China face, the authors put forward a conceptual framework of competitive advantage and technology catching up of Independent Brand automobile enterprises in China. The model indicates that market identifying capability, technology identifying capability, resource mobilization (or configuration) capability, and organizational learning are four key components of competitive advantage automobile enterprises in China are pursuing. The four factors jointly affect the performance of latecomer auto enterprises catching up. Then, a validity testing for the model is performed by the practice in Independent Brand automobile enterprises in China. In the end, the authors draw the implications of the model for Chinese independent brand automobile enterprise technology catching up.