Ontological foundations of competition

It is widely recognized that accurately identifying and classifying competitors is a challenge for many companies and entrepreneurs. Nonetheless, it is a paramount activity which provide valuable insights that affect a wide range of strategic decisions. One of the main challenges in competitor identification lies in the complex nature of the competitive relationships that arise in business environments. These have been extensively investigate over the years, which lead to a plethora of competition theories and frameworks. Still, the concept of competition remains conceptually complex, as none of these approaches properly formalized their assumptions. In this paper, we address this issue by means of an ontological analysis on the notion of competition in general, and of business competition, in particular, leveraging theories from various fields, including Marketing, Strategic Management, Ecology, Psychology and Cognitive Sciences. Our analysis, the first of its kind in the literature, is grounded on the Unified Foundational Ontology (UFO) and allows us to formally characterize why competition arises, as well as to distinguish between three types of business competitive relationships, namely market-level, firm-level and potential competition.

Publication type: 
Contributo in atti di convegno
Author or Creator: 
Sales T.P.
Porello D.
Guarino N.
Guizzardi G.
Mylopoulos J.
Publisher: 
Springfield, Amsterdam , Paesi Bassi
Source: 
Formal Ontology in Information Systems - Proceedings of the 10th International Conference, {FOIS} 2018, Cape Town, South Africa, 19-21 September 2018}, pp. 96–109, Cape Town, South Africa, 19-21 September 2018
info:cnr-pdr/source/autori:Sales T.P.; Porello D.; Guarino N.; Guizzardi G.; Mylopoulos J./congresso_nome:Formal Ontology in Information Systems - Proceedings of the 10th International Conference, {FOIS} 2018, Cape Town, South Africa, 19-21 September 201
Date: 
2018
Resource Identifier: 
http://www.cnr.it/prodotto/i/415056
https://dx.doi.org/10.3233/978-1-61499-910-2-96
info:doi:10.3233/978-1-61499-910-2-96
http://www.scopus.com/record/display.url?eid=2-s2.0-85053864810&origin=inward
Language: 
Eng
ISTC Author: 
Nicola Guarino's picture
Real name: 
Daniele Porello's picture
Real name: