Success of International Enterprises: Reflections on Core Competencies and Strategic Intent

Strategic intent is future-oriented and different from goal in being super ordinate to long range or very long range, uncertain in its achievability and linked to core competencies. On the other hand, a strategic intent creates an obsession with winning at all levels of the enterprise while a vision is more clearly a top management leadership tool. Strategic intent and core competencies are inseparable. Strategic intent decides the development of core competencies of corporate in the long run and a strategic intent is only a wishful thinking without corresponding core competencies. This paper attempts to connect the two concepts of strategic intent and core competencies to discuss the strategic formulation of international enterprises. As the strategic intent is the corporate instinct, the acquisition of core competencies based on organizational learning is also stated. And a general framework for inquiring the causality and key factors to the sustainable competitiveness is proposed lastly.