Competitive Advantage of Nations

I once read an article by Michael Porter called "Strategy and the Internet". In it the author argues against mainstream ideas such as "the internet will change everything in businesses". I did not necessarily agree with the author, but its good to read something critical of popular ideas once in a while. This is why I bought this book, and the author did not dissapoint. Michael Porter challenges alot of "facts" in this book and does a good job. The book is very rich with information and is easy to read. The author picks countries from both the rich world and the developing world. My only problem is that he didnt chose China or India. I think if he was writting the book now he would have definately chosen both of them, but even so, they would have been a goodchoice 30 years ago, I think. Its very challenging to write about "the rise and fall" of economic advantage as a general theory, but the author did an excellent job. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in economics or business, but I dont think socialists will like what they read. The author clearly states that there is a role for the government to play, but not the sort of role communists have in mind. Infact he strongly argues that any interference the wrong way would destroy a nations advantage.

Great reading regarding the topic.

Forty to fifty years ago economists and political theorists did much armwaving about what makes nations competitive. In the past 20 years tools like analysis of patents, R&D expenditures, the numbers of scientifically educated people, have provided more quantitative insight. To these tools Porter adds realistic analyses of top industries in various countries - from shoes and couture in Italy, to Silicon Valley in the U.S. He points out that the fastest growth comes when favorable factors are concentrated in centers where diverse groups - industrial, academic, sometimes government or traditional industries come together and have intense interactions. This book glitters with insights and ideas. The author is among the leading US analysists of economic performance, heading a study discipline at Harvard and working with the National Bureau of Economic Research

the order was managed as it was said upfront. no problem to report though. The quality of the book ( paper and binding ) is acceptable and in line with the description and the delivery coorectly handled to avoid any delay or damage . good stuff - I do not comment here the content of the book. This kind of books is a part of references required for technical matter

Great model that explains the competitiveness of world leading industries illustrated by even better examples. The author has a great writing style that made this lengthy book fun read.The model is far from applicable in all industries even all traceable industries, but it still explains a lot.Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful.Where the model limitations are see the paper Porter's competitive advantage of nations: Time for the final judgement

Porter's writing is clear and direct. With his works, he has made economics, at all levels of analysis (micro, macro) clear and understandable for the interested reader. I recommend all of his works for the reader who truly wants to understand strategy and competitive advantage.

good product . i like it

If you are into marketing this is one of the milestone books. Great content and simple explanations of complicated world of marketing.

This is arguably one of the most important contributions in the field of industrial economics. It was written in 1990. The author had previously written on the competitiveness of firms and here he extends that thought process to industries and nations. He identifies 4 key things that influence competitiveness, which he refers to collectively as the “the diamond”, namely 1) factor conditions 2) demand conditions 3) related and supporting industries and 4) firm strategy, structure and rivalry. He goes on to outline how Britain, the USA, West Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Italy, Japan and South Korea developed during various periods from 1945 to 1990. He finishes the book with a list of general implications for government policy and a specific agenda for each country.Looking now in 2018 at Porter’s agenda for Britain, written in 1990, it is sad how little of it has been implemented. Many of the old problems remain, such as low levels of spending on training and R&D by firms, short termism amongst shareholders and a weak competition policy that is too permissive of takeovers and mergers. Indeed, British industry has since added immigration to our list of problems, which has made labour cheaper and encouraged low levels of spending on labour-saving machinery. It should come as no surprise, in light of the author’s findings, that productivity and wages have fallen in absolute terms since 2008. Most remarkable is that at the time this book was written Britain had a GDP per capita that was about double that of Singapore. Now in 2018 Singapore’s is comfortably ahead of Britain’s.

(2nd edition)Author: Michael E. PorterPublisher: Palgrave, New York, 1998855 pagesUnlike David Landes’ Wealth and Poverty of Nations, which was unashamedly an euro-centric take on the political history of development, and unlike Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel, the award winning anthropological history of development weakened by its far reaching environmental determinism, Michael Porter’s work may be less entertaining as a prose, but it is, I think, the more rigorous and more credible work of the three. Of course, as we shall soon see, it is not entirely devoid of ideology, even if the author was loathe to admit to any ideological bias.As with books of this nature, the author begins with the standard repudiation of the old paradigms for explaining comparative, and disparate, development and under-development of nations. Porter’s central argument, quite persuasive on the face of it, is not so much that old explanations are fundamentally wrong, but that they are weak, inadequate to the task of a comprehensive, holistic explanation. For example, says, Porter, the explanations based on macro-economics is weakened by the fact that some nations, including Japan, Italy and Korea, had experienced significant growth in spite of budget deficits, appreciating currencies, and high interest rates. Similarly, the explanations based on cheap and abundant labour could not account for the giant strides of countries like Germany, Switzerland and Sweden. Also, if growth was based on abundant natural resources, nations like Japan and Switzerland should be lagging behind. Finally, Porter contends that neither government policy, nor management practices, offer a complete, coherent explanation for the progress and regress of nations.Instead, Michael Porter introduces his central idea of competitive advantage, as opposed to the old idea of comparative advantage. The building block of this competitive advantage is the diamond of factor conditions, demand conditions, related and supporting industries, and firm structure, strategy and rivalry. Taking the firm, rather than the nation, as the main unit of analysis, Porter would return now and again to the diamond in his discussion of the competitive advantage of firms within nations. Thus, you will find some terms and themes oft repeated to support the central arguments.The book itself is divided to four parts: Foundations, Industries, Nations, and Implications. The three chapters in Foundations were devoted to more elaborate introduction and discussion of his main concepts, including the four components of the diamond. In the following parts and chapters, he would take the readers through an extensive body of data obtained from a large study of 10 advanced nations: United States, Britain, Germany, Japan, Korea (South Korea), Switzerland, Sweden, Italy, Denmark, and Singapore. Considering this study was set in the mid and late eighties, it is curious that the Soviet Union, the second biggest economic and military power at the time, got only a very brief mention in page 1. Of course, this may be partly due to paucity of data and lack of access to the Soviet Union, but in terms of the key arguments effectively advanced in the book against the socialist model, it would have been useful to get a more detailed explanation of how that nation was, outside of Porter’s model, able to achieve competitive advantage for a long term, before and since the second world war.Porter explains that basic factor conditions- natural resources and cheap unskilled labour are mainly relevant only in the earlier stages of a nation’s economic development. If a nation wants to upwards and onwards on the ladder of development, it needs to move first from basic factors to advanced factors- more educated and highly skilled work-force, and modern infrastructure. This is because, within the paradigm of competitive advantage, it is easier for other competing firms to replicate basic factors (for example by shifting production overseas, something American firms have done vis-a-vis China, or importing cheap raw materials), but advanced factors take much longer to replicate. Even so, right from this early stage, the four components of the diamond work hand in hand. The demand conditions are considered in terms both of quantity and quality. For the former, the sheer number of people within the nation where the firm is operating plays a big role, but this role is not as significant as that played by the quality, or sophistication, of this home demand. Put differently, better informed, sophisticated consumers positively influence the competitive advantage of nations by putting pressures on firms to innovate and upgrade their production. Less informed buyers invariably lead to firms’ stagnation and loss of ground in the global market. The third component of the diamond, related and supporting industry, feeds well into the factors and demand conditions, as spin offs and new start ups agglomerate in clusters to enhance productivity and improve national competitive advantage. This process is mutually reinforcing. For instance, progress in an upstream industry like Materials and Metals lead to spin offs in automobile industry. And as the automobile industry progresses, there is more demand for iron and steel. The fourth component of the diamond –firms structure, strategy and rivalry also integrates well into this. With respect to this fourth component, Porter was especially emphatic about the critical role of domestic rivalry for continuous innovations and upgrading of processes and products in a nation’s industry, and he is critical of mergers and acquisitions, as he is scathing about “counter-productive” government interventions by way of subsidies and protectionism.Porter’s theory is that the competitive advantage of nations is essentially an aggregate of the competitive advantage of individual firms, across the whole spectrum of sectors, in the nation. Even when firms invest overseas, the home base (where the firm’s central management and R &D are located) play the most significant role in terms of contribution to the nation’s aggregate competitive advantage.I found the book to be quite interesting and thought provoking, and I find most of its central arguments to be quite persuasive. However, I think Porter was hard pressed to underplay the role of government, and his lack of detailed treatment of the Soviet Union was a weakness. I am not convinced that, without more aggressive and focused government intervention at the early stages, nations of Africa, for example, can adopt Porter’s model as it is, and genuinely expect to achieve competitive advantage in the modern global market. Certainly, recent developments in Brazil and China (not covered in the book, of course), appear to show that more aggressive, even centrally planned, government intervention can in fact work well in a nation’s objective to achieve competitive advantage.

It's amazing. Its like wood, right,but they've thinned it down and put these magic runes inside that grow your intelligence and knowledge when you look at them long enough!

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No need to say it is one of the best books written in the business