Abstract
Firms sometimes foil to copture opportunities, foil to imitote perfectly-imitoble resources, ond do not solve their solvoble problems. The persistence of errors creotes intro-industry performance variation that is usually attributed to the competitive advantoges of successful firms. However, firms compete on two oxes: the axis of competitive advantage, where performance is driven by the inimitable resources and capabilities of high-performing firms; and the axis of errors, where performance is driven by failures to attend to the activities, resources and opportunities that are equally available to all firms. This paper investigotes the latter, showing how errors produce performance variation not attributable to competitive advantoges, ond discussing their consequences for strategy theory, empirical research and monagement practice.