Abstract
This qualitative study addresses an important area of Competitive Strategy. While Competitive advantage has been studied in detail, the critical aspect of its decline has received a scant attention. Addressing this oversight, based on the literature review and using the resource-based view (RBV) as the primary theoretical foundation, we develop a few propositions related to decline, including culture, TMT, causal ambiguity, dynamic capability, innovation, capability decay, imitation, and disruption. We then apply them to three firms operating in the different industry domains using the case study method. We develop a conceptual research framework to explain the decline phenomenon, the first to do so. Our framework clearly identifies the areas the focal firm should focus on to manage the decline and provides a systematic approach for delving deeply into the decline phenomenon. The contribution will be rooted in and will augment the Resource-Based Theory. With such an outcome, we hope our study will provide practitioners with specific guidance on effective strategies to address the decline in competitive advantage.