The Competitive Advantage and its Role in the economics of Library & Information Centers

In today’s Society, there is a kind of competition among all organizations including libraries. Every organization is trying to put emphasis on Competitive Advantage (CA), increase their income rather than costs. In this paper, after defining competition and competitive advantage, a brief overview of the advantage theories and a glimpse over its concept are presented. Then absolute, relative advantage and their adaptation with library activities are described. In addition, after the introduction of competitive advantage, its viewpoints and dimenstions, resource-based view of competitive advantage and its resources are presented. Finally, the competitive advantage in libraries & information centers is discussed, and the proposed phases in order to create competitive advantage are considered.