Competitiveness

Many philosophers and psychologists have recognized a trait in most living organisms that drive the particular organism to compete. This trait, called competitiveness, is viewed as an innate biological trait that coexists along with the urge for survival. Competitiveness, or the inclination to compete, though, has become identical with aggressiveness and ambitiousness in the English language. Competing with, however, instead of competing against - is synonymous with the synthesis process, and exercised through dialectic. More advanced civilizations integrate progressiveness, instead of forcefulness, into their interactions.

The term also applies to econometrics. Here it is a comparative measure of the ability and performance of a firm or ub-sector to sell and produce/supply goods and/or services in a given market. The two academic bodies of thought on the evaluation of competitivenes are the Structure Conduct Performance Paradigm and the more contemporary New Empirical Industrial organization model. Predicting changes in the competitiveness of business sectors is becoming an integral and explicit step in public policy making. Within capitalist economic systems, the drive of enterprises is to maintain and improve their own competitiveness.