What is going on in competitive strategy and business performance? A bibliometric panorama

PurposeThis study aims to illustrate the improvement of competitive strategy (CS) and organizational performance during the last 30 years and demonstrate the enhancement of cost leadership strategy (CLS) and differentiation strategy (DS) in the competitive market.Design/methodology/approachA bibliometric analysis was conducted via using R Studio and VOS viewer software. The data for this analysis was obtained from the Scopus database. After conducting a search using keywords and applying exclusion criteria, a total of 2,159 papers were identified. Subsequently, exclusion criteria were applied, including a time limit of 1990–2022, subject area of business, management, and accounting, document type as articles, publication stage as final, source type as journals and language as English. After applying these exclusion criteria, a total of 1,034 papers were obtained.FindingsThe results of this study established the development status of the field of competitive strategy and organizational performance, we demonstrated the growth rate, emerging thematic areas for further research, we also identified the most impactful and leading authors, topic trends, keywords, sources, publications and the relationship between co-authors in competitive strategy and organizational performance.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the literature by identifying the growing interest in competitive strategy and organizational performance, the study is more comprehensive regarding the actors and methods involved in analyzing the scientific production of articles on competitive strategy and organizational performance. This study provides a complete picture and description of resulting body knowledge in competitive strategy and organizational performance.