Factors' Contributing to the Competitive Advantage of the Lithuanian Public Relations Agencies

The Thesis deals with the question of competitive advantage of the public relations agencies in Lithuania. The aim of the study is to find the factors that influence competitive advantage of the PR agencies in Lithuania. The other major objective of the work is try to identify the reasons of long term successful or unsuccessful performance of participants of analyzed industry. The analysis of literature on subject of CA and personal professional experience of the author of this work influenced a choice of theoretical Resource based view (J. Barney) model as dominating theoretical background of research model. Though the academic thrust of Industrial Organization (I/O) literature is not rejected, but complements the empirical research with analyses of the strategies (generic strategies of M. Porter) of CA within the industry of PR in Lithuania. The public relations industry in Lithuania is relatively very young – less than 2 decades of age. The actual size of public relations industry cannot be estimated as not all of the PR agencies provide their financial results, still, the official size of the industry is of 23 agencies, making overall yearly turnover of around 100 m. Lt (“Verslo žinios“, 2009). The projects funded from the EU structural funds and the turn of the big local companies to towards corporate social responsibility are among the main reasons of growth.The empirical research has opened, that competence of personnel (human capital) and the know-how of the... [to full text]