Abstract

Michael Porter is by far the world’s best-known professor of strategy, and has been so for at least three decades. His 1980 book, Competitive Strategy, was the first ‘blockbuster’ business book, paving the way for others such as Peters and Waterman with In Search of Excellence, as well as Porter’s own follow-up blockbusters, Competitive Advantage and The Competitive Advantage of Nations. This article examines Porter’s contributions by focusing on the commonalities that link them. Porter has emphasized his approach as being described as a paradigm based on dynamic competitiveness. He has made original contributions to several fields associated with strategy and competitiveness—examining the trade-off between ecology and economics; examining industries such as that of US health care; examining specific countries like Japan from an original competitiveness perspective; and extending his reach to finally encompass a new view of capitalism as a competitive system embedded in a network of social relations.