Factors Influencing Competitive Advantage in Banking Sector: ASystematic Literature Review

Background: The economic importance of banking institutions to national development has been a motivating factor for the sectorʼs bid towards developing and implementing arrays of frameworks for competitive advantage.Competitive advantage as an organizational construct has also been disparately defined and conceptualized in different terms and measures, many of these are inconsistent with bankingʼs institutional focus.The inability to properly contextualize and conceptualize competitive advantage for the banking sector is arguably responsible for the lack of comprehensive identification of its antecedent factors.Materials and Methods: This study employed Systematic Literature Review (SLR) as a research method.The SLR consists of review protocol which specifies the topic to be researched and the method customized in conducting the review.It is the main strategy of detecting relevant literature review and how information is obtained from the primary study.Planning the review, conducting the review and reporting the review are other phases of the SLR method.Results: The study found that quality of service or/and management, corporate social responsibility, strategy formulation, (electronic) marketing innovation and creativity, among others are factors influencing competitive advantage in the banking sector.Conclusion: Competitive advantage can be conceptualized with measurable financial and/or non-financial dimensions and tested in future empirical studies for model fitness.