The role and function of human resources education in sustainable competition: A research on hotel businesses in Marmaris

In a constant changing and developing globe, social, political, cultural and financial elements, affect the patterns of competition in the business world. The concept of competition in this era, has transformed into a concept which is named as sustainable competition, and obtaining and taking advantage of it, has become the ultimate goal for businesses. For this reason, businesses have to develop new competences and skills continuously in order to acquire sustainable competition advantage in competitive markets. Today, considering easy attainability of advanced technology and capital, the most important competence that makes a firm different from others and prevents the imitation of its products or services, emerges as human resources. The development and achievement of this competence up to level that can make a difference is directly related to importance given to its training activities. In this content, it is not possible to think sustainable competition regardless of human resources training activities, and these activities undertakes a fundemental role in obtaining sustainable competition advantage. In this study, employees of human resources departments of 35 hotels located in Marmaris district of Muğla provence were interviewed to investigate the effects and the role of human resources training in obtaining sustainable competition advantage. The results from the research show that there is direct and positive relationship between hotels sustainable competition advantage competence and human resources training. Key Words: Human Resources, Education, Sustainable Competition