The Relationships Between Michael Porter’s Theory of Competitiveness and Economic Development of Nations, Regions, and Cities and the Economics of Innovation
Extract
Eighteen years ago in his masterpiece “The Competitive Advantage of Nations” Michael Porter developed a model to analyze the competitiveness and economic development of nations, regions, and cities, a model that is still a milestone in this field of enquiry. In this work I will try to show how that theory about competitiveness is related with some important aspects of economics of innovation, also in the light of the already visible effects of globalization.
Introduction
I will first explain the effects of globalization as Kotler identified them in the last edition of his best-seller; then I will briefly resume the main concepts of Porter’s theory of competitiveness, showing two examples of how his national view of industrial systems can help in the understanding of success of nations; therefore I will report some contributions from the economics of innovation that do not want to exhaustively resume the findings of the work of Antonelli but only show how some of them can be related with the strategic view on firms definitely imputable to Porter and his followers. In the conclusions I will identify the role of governments and institutions as an engine for growth and innovation, along with the role of competitors and the research of competitiveness within a national system but with a global perspective.
Globalization
Many authors, from many studying fields, say that nowadays we are in the era of post-globalization, that’s to say that it is already possible to see the main results of this process:
• technological progress has gained impressive rates;
• competition is no longer exclusively local-national;
• the marked development of ICT has increased the need and the usage of information as a competitive tool;
• the Internet has an unexpected (at least up to the last century) development which essentially empowers the customer giving him: o access to information, the ability to more carefully manage decision-making processes; o global vision, as a round the
Eighteen years ago in his masterpiece “The Competitive Advantage of Nations” Michael Porter developed a model to analyze the competitiveness and economic development of nations, regions, and cities, a model that is still a milestone in this field of enquiry. In this work I will try to show how that theory about competitiveness is related with some important aspects of economics of innovation, also in the light of the already visible effects of globalization.
Introduction
I will first explain the effects of globalization as Kotler identified them in the last edition of his best-seller; then I will briefly resume the main concepts of Porter’s theory of competitiveness, showing two examples of how his national view of industrial systems can help in the understanding of success of nations; therefore I will report some contributions from the economics of innovation that do not want to exhaustively resume the findings of the work of Antonelli but only show how some of them can be related with the strategic view on firms definitely imputable to Porter and his followers. In the conclusions I will identify the role of governments and institutions as an engine for growth and innovation, along with the role of competitors and the research of competitiveness within a national system but with a global perspective.
Globalization
Many authors, from many studying fields, say that nowadays we are in the era of post-globalization, that’s to say that it is already possible to see the main results of this process:
• technological progress has gained impressive rates;
• competition is no longer exclusively local-national;
• the marked development of ICT has increased the need and the usage of information as a competitive tool;
• the Internet has an unexpected (at least up to the last century) development which essentially empowers the customer giving him: o access to information, the ability to more carefully manage decision-making processes; o global vision, as a round the