Competition, competitive advantage, and clusters: the ideas of Michael Porter

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1 University Press Scholarship Online You are looking at 1-10 of 18 items for: keywords : Michael Competition, competitive advantage, and clusters: the ideas of Michael Robert Huggins and Hiro Izushi Published in print: Published Online: May acprof:oso/ This introductory chapter reviews the position and influence of 's work in academia and outside; the path of 's work; as well as the outlining the book as a whole. Following an overview of 's position and influence briefly described above, the chapter traces the evolution of 's thinking by reviewing his key articles and books. The chapter highlights how Michael came be one of the most influential figures in strategic management research over the last three decades. It is argued that infused a rigorous theoretical framework of industrial organization economics with the then still embryonic field of strategic management and elevated it to its current status as an academic discipline. The chapter also discusses 's influence on national and regional economic development policymaking, as well as his foray into a number of other topics, including inner city development, environmental regulations, and health care services. Clusters and competitiveness: 's contribution Christian H.M. Ketels Published in print: Published Online: May acprof:oso/ This chapter looks at the origins of 's interest in clusters and identifies the key characteristics of his conceptual thinking and Page 1 of 7

2 extensions of these core concepts in 's more recent work. It explores the policy implications that can be drawn from 's work on clusters. Discussing why 's work in this field has had such a profound impact, especially on practitioners, it is argued that addresses the very specific needs of different practitioner constituencies, providing a framework and actionable ideas they can easily relate to. Finally, chapter turns to a number of open issues that will determine whether 's long-term impact on the practice and thinking in this field will reach its full potential. It suggests that for academic research, the future legacy of 's work on clusters will depend on whether his ideas will be re-connected to other related approaches in the field. Conclusion: 's perspective Robert Huggins and Hiro Izushi Published in print: Published Online: May acprof:oso/ This chapter provides an interpretation of the key perspectives and debates concerning 's contributions across the range of fields and disciplines into which he has delved, as well as 's own views on his career, contributions, and his critics. It draws on comments made by in an interview with the authors. This interview provides a fascinating insight into the nature of 's thinking, especially in terms of seeking to connect the various strands that have contributed to his remarkable career. The chapter highlights that 's sustained mantra is competition, and he has consistently and emphatically used the competition metaphor to argue and promote its importance as the underlying driver of economic and business success. It is further shows does not consider the pervasiveness of competition to merely restricted to the traditional corporate sector, but also extending to the arts, education, the environment, health care, and philanthropy, which he argues increasingly require competition in order to efficiently manage growing needs within a context of increasingly scarce resources. Competition, Competitive Advantage, and Clusters: The Ideas of Michael Robert Huggins and Hiro Izushi (eds) Published in print: Published Online: May Page 2 of 7

3 Item type: book acprof:oso/ Harvard professor, Michael has been one of the most influential figures in strategic management research over the last three decades. He infused a rigorous theoretical framework of industrial organization economics with the then still embryonic field of strategic management and elevated it to its current status as an academic discipline. 's outstanding career is also characterized by its cross-disciplinary nature. Following his most important work on strategic management, he then made a leap to the policy side and dealt with completely different set of analytical units from his earlier work. More recently he has made a foray into inner city development, environmental regulations, and health care services. Throughout these explorations has maintained his integrative approach, seeking a road that links management case studies and the general model building of mainstream economics. 's cross-disciplinary exploration has created tensions within the various fields to which he has contributed, and his work on both strategic management and economic development has met with criticism. With expert contributors from a range of disciplines including strategic management, economic development, economic geography and planning, this book assesses the contribution Michael has made to these respective disciplines. It clarifies the sources of tension and controversy relating to all the major strands of 's work, and provides academics, students and practitioners managers and policymakers with a key and critical guide for the application of 's models. The book highlights that while many of the criticisms of 's are valid, they are almost an inevitable outcome for a scholar who has sought to build bridges across wide disciplinary valleys. His efforts have provided others with a toolbox of frameworks to explore in more depth the nature of competition, competitive advantage, and clusters from a range of vantage points, such as firm, nation, or regional levels. The evolution and eclecticism of 's thinking Nicolai J. Foss Published in print: Published Online: May acprof:oso/ The chapter highlights the substantial changes have taken place in 's thinking from his Ph.D. dissertation to his work on the role of location. While the doctrinal antecedents of the industry analysis Page 3 of 7

4 approach are clear and unambiguous, namely IO economics in the Bain/ Mason tradition, has brought essentially resource-based insights into the frameworks of his later contributions, Competitive Advantage and The Competitive Advantage of Nations. Foss argues that this is not just a matter of successively directing his attention to different analytical objects, it is also a matter of his attempting to approach different phenomena without applying the outgrowths of fundamental theory. The chapter argues that the developments in 's thinking show that different theoretical alternatives are brought together in loose frameworks with no serious attempt to confront them and examine their logical relations, i.e., in terms of whether they are consistent, complementary, or mutually exclusive. Introduction Michael H. Best in The New Competitive Advantage: The Renewal of American Industry Published in print: 2001 Published Online: November 2003 ISBN: eisbn: Competing perspectives on the role of technology in economic growth are briefly presented. Neoclassical growth theory does not control for technology; the new growth theory accounts for new ideas; and Joseph Schumpeter focuses attention on innovation and the entrepreneur. Michael, following Alfred Chandler, focuses attention on business organization and competitive strategy and introduces the concept of cluster to explain competitiveness. The capabilities and innovation perspective that informs The New Competitive Advantage develops the concept of the entrepreneurial firm; distinguishes technology from technology management; integrates production into business organization; and contrasts inter firm relations in terms of market, and closed and open networks. Driven by a technology capability and market opportunity, dynamic, entrepreneurial firms are forever advancing their own capabilities. In the process a region's technology capabilities are revitalized and growth potential is enhanced. The book is organized around Productivity Triad, a concept that captures the interdependencies amongst business model, production capabilities, and skill formation. Page 4 of 7

5 The growth and competitiveness of nations: 's contribution Brian Snowdon Published in print: Published Online: May acprof:oso/ This chapter assesses the contributions has made with The Competitive Advantage of Nations and his involvement in the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report. It focuses on 's attempt to bridge the gap between the micro-oriented strategic management literature, and the economics literature relating to economic growth, development, and trade. The chapter indicates that 's analysis of the competitiveness of nations has proved to be an important and stimulating, if controversial, contribution. In particular, has ignited debate on the meaning and measurement of competitiveness in the context of nations and regions. Furthermore, 's leadership and research contribution to the production of the World Economic Forum's (WEF) annual Global Competitiveness Report (GCR) has highlighted the importance of a nation's microeconomic fundamentals in providing the sound foundations necessary to foster sustained economic development and growth. On diamonds, clusters, and regional development Edward J. Malecki Published in print: Published Online: May acprof:oso/ This chapter traces the roots of 's cluster concept. Unusually for a business scholar, has made important contributions to local and regional development. It suggests that 's ideas are meshed nicely with the emerging focus of economists, geographers, and regional scientists on innovation systems, inter-firm linkages, industry life cycle, and technological change. At the foundation of economic development, in its positive-sum, generative sense, are spillovers and increasing returns, which are exploited by the creation of local synergies among Page 5 of 7

6 local actors and the integration of external connections into the local relational web. Although this is exactly what policymakers, regional development scholars, and himself would like to generate, the chapter cautions that cluster policies run the risk of creating the illusion that the process is quick, rather than one that typically takes a long period of time to reach fruition. Why Competitive Strategy succeeds and with whom 1 J.-C. Spender and Jeroen Kraaijenbrink Published in print: Published Online: May acprof:oso/ This chapter poses the question why the book Competitive Strategy had such a huge impact and was so widely embraced by managers, policy makers, consultants, and strategy teachers, although at the same time was often criticized for its apparent shortcomings by strategy theorists. The chapter considers the intellectual context and sources behind the book and probe explanations of its impact. It gets into the history of the industrial organization (IO) movement and its associated methodological issues and disputes. Through an examination of IO's relationship to contemporary business, it is shown that Competitive Strategy's appeal to practitioners has little to do with the narrow logic of homo economicus or positivist notions of theoretical rigor. It is a framework to help strategists know what they should take into account as constraints on their options, so as to arrive at the managerial choices their situation calls for. The strategic management framework: a methodological and epistemological examination Omar Aktouf, Miloud Chennoufi, and W. David Holford Published in print: Published Online: May acprof:oso/ This chapter suggests that while 's work is the basis of a systematic approach to strategy, it in no way guarantees the scientific rigor he claims. It offers a two-fold critique concerning the real Page 6 of 7

7 reasons for the success enjoyed by 's work. At the ideological level it is argued that 's work legitimizes the current state of relations of force within and between firms operating in advanced capitalist economies, allowing dominant incumbents to draw arguments and reasons of a scientific nature to justify their domination. At the operational level, it is argued that his work offers ease of comprehension, relative ease of implementation, and subsequent gratification from initial operational successes. It is suggested operational successes derived from 's frameworks do not assure the achievement of a lasting, defensible, and non-easily imitable competitive advantage. Page 7 of 7