Competitiveness is considered as a key criterion for appraising the degree of success for countries, industries and enterprises in the political, economic and commercial competition areas. Research findings show that competitiveness has been discussed in three levels of national, industry and enterprise (organization or company). Among all these levels, the enterprise level seems to be more considerable. In this study enterprise competitiveness has been viewed from two main perspectives: construct and behavioral. According to construct perspective, competitiveness includes two groups of factors which are composing and affecting factors. Based on behavioral perspective an enterprise faces two types of factors in its decisions and actions which are strategic and operational ones. As a result of literature review, summarization and complementary edition, totally 28 factors have been identified as competitiveness factors ({16 composing f. and 12 affecting f.} and {15 strategic f. and 13 operational f.}). A questionnaire has also been developed based on these factors. The findings show that in Iranian business context, all competitiveness factors of enterprises are highly important but very weak.

Today, active banks in the banking system try to attract customers through various new methods. However what can help banks to meet this goal is to try to achieve competitive advantage. Many banks have tried to create advantages for themselves in different ways so that preserve their place in competition with other banks. Therefore, it is necessary to introduce a model which helps the banks to understand their current status in order to help for future planning. This research offers a scientific and systematic model to measure the banks competitive ability. The model presented in this study, introduces main variables affecting banks competitiveness including financial power, market share, human capital, and international- exchange activities and use of technology. Each of these variables can be calculated through their indices. After approving by experts, this model was confirmed using factor analysis and LISREL software. The results explain that among model variables, financial power has the most effect on competitiveness of Iranian bank. Next, this model was used to rank competitive ability of state (commercial and professional) and private banks using TOPSIS technique.

From exports point of view, competitiveness concept is a very restricted approach. Competitiveness is a reflection of microeconomic decisions, socio-political problems and public welfare and it must also potentially be able to help countries achieve a sustainable value added creation. Due to this reason, most studies on this issue consider competitiveness in terms of efficiency and labor productivity. This paper uses competitiveness indexes and competitiveness factor of international management development to examine the country's competitiveness power such as knowledge based competitiveness, education, technology and information infrastructures, innovation and economic and institutional performances. The results indicate that a quadratic form explains the relationship between competitiveness and human capital. It confirms that the average years of schooling has a positive effect on labor productivity. Moreover, technology and information infrastructures (ICT), defined as the ratio of ICT expenditures over GDP, has a positive effect on labor productivity. Government size and the degree of openness have a negative effect on competitiveness. Economic and institutional performances have a positive effect on competitiveness, the more freedom of speech, the higher the competitiveness power.

In this research, a model has been developed to measure the firm’ s competitive power. The developed model is based on Porter's competitive model and using analytic network process and fuzzy logic techniques. The five forces of Porter’ s industry structure model which are threat of potential entrants, bargaining power of buyers, bargaining power of suppliers, the intensity of competition among rivals and the threat of substitute products have been considered as the main competitive forces. Using experts and senior managers’ view in a carbonated beverage Company, the importance of studied forces and their determinant variables were found for Iranian carbonated beverage industry. The price of substitute products was determined as the most important factor, in Iranian beverage industry, which influence on firm’ s competitiveness. Finally, considering the competitive situation of the studied company, its competitiveness score was determined.