| | |  | Karl Long | | Home » | | | | | | | Product Promotions: | | | | | Description: | | On Competition, a collection of works by Michael E. Porter, is a critical examination of the dog-eat-dog international economy. A Harvard Business School professor, Porter is one of the most respected and innovative economists of his time. Author of 15 books, he advises key elected officials and business leaders in all parts of the world. On Competition features 13 of his best articles over the past 15 years, including 2 new ones. The essence of Porter's message is that every company, country, and person must master competition to thrive in brutal international and domestic economies. Competition is the key to excellence. Worried about losing your job or your services becoming obsolete? Porter believes that a little fear is good for everyone. "Companies that value stability, obedient customers, dependent suppliers and sleepy competitors are inviting inertia and, ultimately, failure," he writes in his 1990 study and essay "The Competitive Advantage of Nations." Porter is a longtime critic of the short-term thinking on Wall Street that often stifles competition and hurts the economy. In "Capital Disadvantage: America's Failing Capital Investment System," he calls for much lower capital-gains rates for people who invest for the long term. He also urges investors and businesses to start thinking together. He contends that pension funds and institutional investors should get a greater say over the companies they own. It's wacky to have company directors with little expertise or financial interest in the company, he writes. Porter is often unconventional and asserts that businessmen must be, too. In his essay "Green and Competitive," he shows little sympathy for businesses that complain about environmental regulations. Rules to protect the environment don't have to strangle companies--they can actually improve productivity with the right attitude and approach. Rhone-Poulenc, a French chemical and drug company, proved this when it stopped incinerating a certain byproduct and began selling it as an additive for dyes and tanning. Readable and provocative, On Competition is vital for business, government, and financial leaders as well as small-business people and investors. --Dan Ring | | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Michael E. Porter | | Hardcover:
| 485 pages | | Publisher:
| Harvard Business School Press | | Publication Date:
| 1998-10 | | ISBN:
| 0875847951 | | Package Length:
| 9.37 inches | | Package Width:
| 6.14 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.81 inches | | Package Weight:
| 1.98 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 14 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
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0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Great Service, Excellent ProductFeb 15, 2008
I am new to buying used copies through Amazon, so I orignally had some doubts. However, the experience I had with this purchase suprised me in that it was delivered a lot quicker than I expected it, and the book was in great condition. I thank the distributer for displaying such great service and will look foward to making any purchases in the future.
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Even More Relevant and More Valuable TodayMay 30, 2006
I read this book when it was first published (in 1979) and recently re-read it prior to reading his most recent work, Redefining Health Care which I will also review in the near future. In the Introduction (which then became the first chapter of Competitive Strategy, published in 1980), Porter observes that competition "has intensified over the last decades, in virtually all parts of the world." That is even more true of competition - especially global competition -- during the 27 years since Porter shared that observation. Nonetheless, the core concepts which he and his collaborators rigorously examine remain relevant...indeed, in my opinion, have become even more relevant. Consider these assertions:
1. Competition shapes strategy
2. Successful strategy creates a "fit" among all organizational activities
3. Information can provide a decisive competitive advantage
4. Declining industries require an "end-game" strategy
5. Successful corporate strategy "builds" on three premises: Competition occurs at the business unit level, diversification inevitably adds costs and constraints to business units, and, shareholders can readily diversify themselves.
6. "Moving from competitive strategy to corporate strategy is the business equivalent of passing through the Bermuda Triangle."
Porter carefully organizes the material within three Parts: First, he focuses on competition and strategy for companies at both the level of a single industry and then for multinational or diversified companies; next, he addresses the role of location in competition; and then he Part III, he addresses some important societal issues (e.g. environment, urban poverty, health care, and income inequality), each of which he asserts - and I wholly agree - is "inextricably bound up with economics and, more specifically, with competition."
All but two of the articles originally appeared in Harvard Business Review, the exceptions being "Clusters and Competition: New Agendas for Companies, Governments, and Institutions" and "Competing Across Locations: Enhancing Competitive Advantage through a Global Strategy." In the former, Porter explains his concept of clusters, clusters which are geographic concentrations of firms, suppliers, related industries, and specialized institutions that occur in a particular field in a nation, state, or city. In the latter, Porter brings together the two dimensions of international strategy - location and global networks. As he observes, "The concept of activities, so important to understanding competitive advantage in general terms, provides the basic framework for international strategy as well."
This is by no means an "easy read" but it will generously reward those who read it with appropriate care. By all accounts, Michael Porter is among the most influential and productive knowledge leaders, justly renowned for his cutting-edge thinking on the subject of strategy formulation and implementation but in this volume and in countless others, he also has much of great value to say about competitive and corporate strategy insofar as their global impact is concerned. That said, many of his greatest concerns are those specifically related to the U.S. economy. Hence the importance to me of what he and his collaborators (Claas van der Linde, Elizabeth Olmsted Teisberg, and Gregory B. Brown) have to say in Part III: "Competitive Solutions to Societal Problems."
Those who share my high regard for this volume are urged to check out Porter's other works as well as two recently published books: Kenichi Ohmae's The Next Global Stage and C.K. Prahalad's The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid.
3 of 4 found the following review helpful:
 Insightful!Jun 20, 2005
Remember when you were a youthful entrepreneur operating a neighborhood lemonade stand? If author Michael E. Porter had walked up to buy a cup of punch from you, he probably would have asked about your business strategy. While you poured, he would have questioned what made your lemonade different from anyone else's. If he liked your lemonade, he'd no doubt give you suggestions on how to earn millions competing in the global marketplace. Ah, if only you had listened... The author, America's dean of competition, has spent two decades asking seminal questions such as, "What is competition? What are its effects? How can society benefit?" The Harvard Business Review previously published 11 of the 13 articles collected in this book. In the two new essays, Porter serves up invaluable concepts. His take on the growing importance of location, despite rising globalization, is a tour de force. Oddly, Porter sees no inconsistency in encouraging "productive competition" in the health care industry while advocating universal health care. For Porter, competition is the ingredient that turns lemons into lemonade. We recommend his latest book to any corporate strategist who seeks ideas on becoming more competitive, starting in your own neighborhood.
8 of 8 found the following review helpful:
Helpful Essays from a Corporate Strategy IconDec 07, 2002
This book is a collection of essays and articles by Michael Porter alone or with others. Most of them are collected from his writings in the Harvard Business Review although two are new to this book. Think of this as a "Porter's Greatest Hits" kind of thing. That is a bit misleading because his HBR articles are not exactly the same thing as his Competitive Advantage books although the topics are definitely related.The essays are grouped into three broad sections: 1) Competition and Strategy: Core Concepts, 2) The Competitiveness of Locations, and 3) Competitive Solutions to Societal Problems. Will you find each article of the same high quality? Probably not (again, like a greatest hits collection), but you will find them informative and thought provoking. It is impossible to study for an MBA nowadays without invoking "Porter's Five Forces" in your discussions of competitive and marketing strategy. This book can help add to your thinking and understanding of how every aspect of our life is in some way part of a competitive context and the ways it improves our standard of living. It will also help you improve your thinking in how to best strategize for and participate in competitive situations. It would be a mistake to think that Porter advocates for a Hobbesian nightmare of life being nasty, brutish and short. Rather, he is more or less helping us think through the nature of the way competition arises and how to best think about its sources and how to manage it and the traps to avoid. While Porter's model is used by some as a hammer that sees everything as a nail, it really needn't be used that way and, in its proper context, is very helpful.
5 of 5 found the following review helpful:
Great aggregration of Porter's workOct 26, 2001
'Porter On Competition' is 'lighter' to read than his 'Trilogy', but it nicely consists the core ideas of his work & how it evolved during the past decades. It provides reader a nice overview about how competitive strategy & competitive advantage are applicable to a wide range of areas: from corporation, industry & nation, to social issues such as health care & environment.
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