How Companies Can Gain a Sustainable Competitive Advantage in the New Digital Era? The Case of Romania

The purpose of this article is to analyze how digitalization can impact the level of competitiveness of those organizations that implement a digitalization strategy and to define the current situation in Romania in terms of the level of competitiveness at the international level and the main associated influencing factors. The research covers, first of all, the critical analysis of the current scientific literature on this topic. In the second part of the paper, we used econometric analysis, statistical data interpretation as well as descriptive analysis. The main results show, on the one hand, a positive and strong correlation between digitalization and competitiveness, and on the other hand the fact that Romania is far behind, in terms of international competitiveness, for reasons not exclusively related to digitalization. The article is a contribution to the specialized literature because it confirms some of the results obtained by other researchers regarding the relationship between innovation and business performance and at the same time proposes concrete measures to improve the level of competitiveness according to the main current issues that we have identified. Our study also presents possible practical implications, both for the academic environment, and for the policymakers and managers involved in the development of the Romanian business sector.