Measuring countries competitiveness: weaknesses and possible areas for improvement

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of frameworks for measuring the World Economic Forum (WEF) and International Institute for Management Development (IMD) countries’ competitiveness for their compliance with general provisions of the theory of measurement, the methodology of the theory of competitiveness and the content of its basic concept – the concept of a country’s competitiveness. It is shown that, despite the decades-long debate around the concept of competitiveness and the lack of a satisfactory definition of this concept, in the opinion of many leading scientists, the frameworks for assessing the countries’ competitiveness and other economic agents are available, actively developed and used widely in management practice. The analysis of these frameworks suggests that they are based on methodologically flawed definitions of the competitiveness concept, so the competitiveness indexes (Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) and World Competitiveness Index (WCI)) are not assessments of competitiveness as such, but generalized assessments of the competitiveness factors’ system at best. A list of common elements of frameworks that significantly reduce the feasibility and accuracy of competitiveness measurement results, and which should be considered as focus of efforts to improve the frameworks for measuring the competitiveness of economic agents of any types, has been identified. Based on the methodologically rigorous definition of a country's competitiveness concept proposed by the authors, the article identifies the main properties of competitiveness as an object of measurement and the tasks arising from the nature of this attribute of the national economy, the solution of which would improve the scientific validity and reliability of countries' competitiveness assessments.