porter's competitive advantage of nations
国家竞争优势【外文翻译】
外文翻译原文The Competitive Advantage of Nations Material Source:Harvard Business Preview Author：Michael E. PorterNation prosperity is created,not inherited. It does not grow out of a country's natural endowments, its labour pool, its interest rates, or its currency's value, as classical economics insists.A nation's competitiveness depends on the capacity of its industry to innovate and upgrade. Companies gain advantage against the world's best competitors because of pressure and challenge. They benefit from having strong domestic rivals, aggressive home-based suppliers, and demanding local customers.In a world of increasingly global competition,nations have become more,not less,important. As the basis of competition has shifted more and more to the creation and assimilation of knowledge, the role of the nation has grown. Competitive advantage is created and sustained through a highly localized process. Differences in national values,culture,economics structures,institutions,and histories all contribute to competitive success. There are striking differences in the patterns of competitiveness in every country; no nation can or will be competitive in every or even most industries because their home environment is the most forward-looking, dynamic,and challenging.These conclusions, the product of a four-year study of the patterns of competitive success in ten leading trading nations,contradict the conventional wisdom that guides the thinking of many companies and national governments and that is pervasive today in the United States. According to prevailing thinking, labour costs, interest rates, exchange rates, and economies of scale are the most potent determinants of competitiveness. In companies, the words of the day are merger, alliance, strategic partnerships, collaboration, and supranational globalization. Managers are pressing for more government support for particular industries. Among governments, there is a growing tendency to experiment with variouspolicies intended to promote national competitiveness from efforts to manage exchange rates to new measures to manage trade to policies to relax antitrust which usually end up only undermining it.These approaches, now much in favour in both companies and governments, are flawed. They fundamentally misperceive the true source of competitive advantage. Pursuing them, with all their short-term appeal, will virtually guarantee that the United States or any other advanced nation never achieves real and sustainable competitive advantage.We need a new perspective and new tools an approach to competitiveness that grows directly out of an analysis internationally successful industries, without regard for traditional ideology or current intellectual fashion. We need to know, very simply, what works and why. Then we need to apply it.Factor conditions. According to standard economic theory, factors of production-labour, land, natural resources, capital, infrastructure-will determine the flow of trade. A nation will export those goods that make most use of the factors with which it is relatively well endowed. This doctrine, whose origins date back to Adam Smith and David Ricardo and that is embedded in classical economics, is at best incomplete and at worst incorrect.In the sophisticated industries that form the backbone of any advanced economy, a nation does not inherit but instead creates the most important factors of production-such as skilled human resources or a scientific base. Moreover, the stock of factors that a nation enjoys at a particular time is less important than the rate and efficiency with which it creates, upgrades, and deploys them in particular industries.The most important factors of production are those that involve sustained and heavy investment and are specialized. Basic factors, such as a pool of labour or a local raw-material source, do not constitute an advantage in knowledge-intensive industries. Companies can access them easily through a global strategy or circumvent them.Contrary to conventional wisdom, simply having a general work force that is high school or even college educated represents no competition. To support competitive advantage, a factor must be highly specialized to an industry's particular needs-a scientific institute specialized in optics, a pool of venture capital to fund software companies. These factors are more scarce, more difficult for foreign competitor to imitate-and they require sustained investment to create.Nations succeed in industries where they are particularly good at factorcreation. Competitive advantage results from the presence of world-class institutions that first create specialized factors and then continually work to upgrade them. Denmark has two hospitals that concentrate in studying and treating diabetes-and a world-leading export position in insulin. Holland has premier research institutes in the cultivation, packing , and shipping of flowers, where it is the world's export leader.What is not so obvious, however, is that selective disadvantages in the more basic factors can prod a company to innovate and upgrade-a disadvantage in a static model of competition can become an advantage in a dynamic one. When there is an ample supply of cheap raw materials or abundant labour, companies can simply rest on these advantages and often deploy them inefficiently. But when companies face a selective disadvantage, like high land costs, labour shortages, or the lack of local raw materials. They must innovate and upgrade to compete.Implicit in the oft-repeated Japanese statement, "We ate an island nation with no natural resources," is the understanding that these deficiencies have only served to spur Japan's competitive innovation. Just-in-time production, for example, economized on prohibitively expensive space. Italian steel producers in the Brescia area faced a similar set of disadvantages: high capital costs, high energy costs, and no local raw materials. Located in Northern Lombardy, these privately owned companies faced staggering Logistics costs due to their distance from southern ports and the inefficiencies of the state-owned Italian transportation system. The result: they pioneered technologically advanced minimills that require only modest capital investment, use less energy, employ scrap metal as the feedstock, are eddicient at small scale, and permit producers to locate close to sources of scrap and end use customers. In other words, they converted factor disadvantage into competitive advantage.Disadvantages can become advantages only under certain conditions. First , they must send companies proper signals about circumstances that will spread to other nations, thereby equipping them to innovate in advance of foreign rivals. Switzerland, the nation that experienced the first labour shortages after World War II, is a case in point. Swiss companies responded to the disadvantage by upgrading labour productivity and seeking higher value, more sustainable market segments. Companies in most other parts of the world, where there were still ample workers, focused their attention on other issues, which resulted in slower upgrading.The second condition for transforming disadvantages into advantages isfavorable circumstances elsewhere in the diamond-a consideration that applies to almost all determinants. To innovate, companies must have access to people with appropriate skills and have home-demand conditions that send the right signals. They must also have active domestic rivals who create pressure to innovate. Another precondition is company goals that lead to sustained commitment to the industry. Without such a commitment and the presence of active rivalry, a company may take an easy way around a disadvantage rather than using it as a spur to innovation.For example, U.S. Consumer-electronic companies, faced with high relative labour costs, chose to leave the product and production process largely unchanged and move labour-intensive activities to Taiwan and other Asian countries. Instead of upgrading their sources of advantage, they settled for labour-cost parity. On the other land, Japanese rivals, confronted with intense domestic competition and a mature home market, chose to eliminate labour through automation. This led to lower assembly costs, to products with fewer components and improved quality and reliability. Soon Japanese companies were building assembly plants in the United States-the place U.S. Companies had fled.The Diamond of National AdvantageWhy are certain companies based in certain nations capable of consistent innovation? Why do they ruthlessly purse improvements, seeking an ever more sophisticated source of competitive advantage? Why are they able to overcome the substantial barriers to change and innovation that so often accompany success?The answer lies in four broad attributes of nation, attributes that individually and as a as system constitute the diamond of national advantage, the playing field that cach nation establishes and operates for its industries. These attributes are:1.Factor conditions. The nation's position in factor of production, such as skilled labour or infrastructure, necessary to compete in a given industry.2.Demand conditions. The nature of home-market demand for the industry's product or service.3.Related and supporting industries. The presence or absence in the nation of supplier industries and other related industries that are internationally competitive.4.Firm strategy, structure, and rivalry. The condition in the nation governing how companies are created, organized, and managed, as well as the nature of domestic rivalry.These determinants create the national environments in which companies are born and learn how to compete. Each point on the diamond and the diamond as asystem affects essential ingredients for achieving international competitive success: the availability of resources and skills necessary for competitive advantage in an industry ; the information that shapes the opportunities that companies perceive and directions in which they deploy their resources on companies; and most important, the pressures on companies to invest and innovate.When a national environment permits and supports the most rapid accumulation of specialized assets and skills sometimes simply because of greater effort and commitment companies gain a competitive advantage. When a national environment affords better ongoing information and insight into product and process needs, companies gain a competitive advantage. Finally, when the national environment pressures companies to innovate and invest, companies both gain a competitive advantage and upgrade those advantages over time.译文国家竞争优势资料来源:哈佛商业评论作者：迈克尔.波特一个国家的繁荣是由后天创造出来的，而不是天生的。
名词解释英文国际经济学
名词解释英文国际经济学Absolute Advantage：the greater efficiency that one nation may have over another in the production of a commodity.Comparative Advantage:A country has a comparative advantage in producing a goods if the opportunity cost of producing that goods in terms of other goods is lower in that country than it is in other countries.The terms of trade is the relative price at which two countries trade goods. Terms of trade =export price index/ import price indexSmall Country EffectIf a small nation trade with a very large nation according to its comparative advantage, the small nation can achieve complete labor specialization in production, and the large nation can not. The terms of trade must be the relative price of the large nation in autarky. Because the small nat ion is very small, it can’t affect the supply and demand for any product of the large nation. As such, the small nation gets all the gains from trade and the large nation gets no gains from trade.Distribution of the gains from tradeExport-prompting measures Export subsidies(出口补贴）Export credit (出口信贷）Export Credit Guarantee System（出口信贷担保）Foreign exchange dumping (外汇倾销）Free trade areasAssignment mechanisms of import quotaspublic auction-system 公开拍卖constant preference-system 固定的受惠application-procedure system 使用申请程序Export subsidies and its’ economic effect The implication of export subsidesA quota is a direct quantitative restriction on the amount of a commodity allowed to be imported or exported (in the form of voluntary export restraints).As tariffs were negotiated down during the postwar period, then import quotas have been widely used by developed nations to protect their agriculture and by developing nations to stimulate import substitution of manufactured products and for balance-of-payments reasons.Other non-tariff barriers Industrial policy ,Government procurement Dumping and anti-dumping T echnical barriers to tradeLabor and environmental standards,Transportation costs and trade The Theory of Protective Trade 1.Merchantilism 2. The optimum tariff theory3.The infant industry argument4. Keynes’ protective trade theory5. Strategic trade policy6. The political economy of protectionism幼稚产业论 a national economy can be divided into five stages. In an early stage of industrialization required tariff protection to stimulate development.Infant industries are those that are not strong enough to survive open competition and have the growth potential. How toJudge。
michael e. porter文献引用
Michael E. Porter，哈佛商学院经济学家和学者，是战略管理领域的泰斗级人物。
他的研究涉及领域广泛，包括竞争策略、行业竞争、经济发展等方面。
作为全球知名的管理学者，Porter的研究成果对于商业战略的制定和执行具有重要影响。
以下是一些对于Michael E. Porter的文献引用，以展现其在商业管理领域的重要影响：1. Porter, M. E. (1980). Competitive strategy: Techniques for analyzing industries andpetitors. Free Press.这本书是Porter最知名的著作之一，被誉为“竞争领域的圣经”。
在此书中，他提出了三种竞争策略：成本领先、差异化和集中化战略。
这些战略理论成为了商业管理中的重要工具，帮助企业分析其所在产业的竞争环境，并决定如何制定竞争策略以获得持续竞争优势。
2. Porter, M. E. (1985). Competitive advantage: Creating and sust 本人ning superior performance. Free Press.在这本书中，Porter进一步深化了竞争策略的研究，提出了价值链分析和核心竞争力理论。
他强调了企业要想在市场上取得持续竞争优势，就必须寻找自己的核心竞争力，并通过不断优化价值链来创造和维持这一竞争优势。
3. Porter, M. E. (1990). Thepetitive advantage of nations. FreePress.这本书是Porter在跨国经营和国际竞争领域的重要研究成果。
他提出了“国家竞争优势”的概念，强调了国家的经济竞争力与其产业集聚、创新能力以及国家因素相关。
这一理论对于国家经济发展和产业政策的制定具有重要的指导意义。
4. Porter, M. E. (2008). The fivepetitive forces that shape strategy. Harvard Business Review, 86(1), 78-93.这篇文章系统性地阐述了Porter的“五力分析”理论，强调了竞争对手、供应商、顾客、替代品和新进入者对企业竞争的影响。
国际企业管理 双语 期末简答题汇总(含翻译)
2.economic risks 3.political risks 4.Foreign exchange risks 5.intellectual property protection 6.Different legal and economic systems 7.not being paid for your goods and services 2经济风险 3政治风险 4外汇风险 5知识产权保护 6不同的法律和经济制度 7没有为你的商品和服务支付
A.majority of firms that initiate international business activities use four forms of entry strategies: 1.indirect exporting and importing, 2.direct exporting and importing, 3.licensing, 4.franchising. 绝大多数公司发起国际商务活动，使用四种形式的进入 策略： 间接出口和进口 直接出口和进口 许可证 特许经营。
4.Approaching Neighbors to Control Risk 5.Protecting Turf 6. extend the product life cycle. 7.Shorter technology cycles and the rapid diffusion of technologies 4、接近邻居控制风险 5、保护草坪 6。延长产品生命周期。 7、较短的技术周期和技术的快速扩散
topic4国际商务研究
1. What are the major difference between international and domestic research?(4-1) 国际和国内调查的主要差异有哪些？
The Competitive Advantage of Nations
Michael E. Porter. The Competitive Advantage of Nations. New York: Free Press, 1990. 855 pages. Hardbound. UK 25 [pounds sterling].Trade is a field of economics that is useful for investigating the issue of economic competitiveness. A nation's advantages in competing against other nations are reflected in its performance in international economic transactions. Earlier theories on trade (Ricardian and Heckscher-Ohlin) analysed a nation's inter-sectoral comparative advantage. Due to the intuitive appeal of these theories, governments have implemented various policies designed to improve comparative advantage in factor costs by ,educing interest rates and resorting to devaluation, special depreciation allowances, export financing, etc. There is now a growing awareness that these theories are unrealistic as to many industries, although they can be useful in explaining broad tendencies apparent in the patterns of trade.On the other hand, technology-gap and product-cycle models attempt to explain absolute advantage based on cross-country variations in technology--an important departure from the Heckscher-Ohlin world. Absolute advantage refers to the absolute cost advantage of a nation over another in producing a product. Trade occurs as a result of a nation's owning an absolute advantage earned from its technological lead over another.The Competitive Advantage of Nations by Michael Porteraddresses some very important issues related to trade in goods and services: Why do some nations succeed and others fail in international competition? Why are firms based in a particular nation able to create and sustain competitive advantage against the world's best competitors in a particular field?Porter expresses his strong conviction that a decisive national economic environment allows firms to create and sustain competitive advantage in particular fields, and hence in the competitive advantage of nations. He emphasises that although much can be learned through an economy-wide approach (which reflects national characteristics) to understand the competitive success of a nation, yet the industry-specific circumstances, choices, and outcomes overshadowthe macro approach. An industry is where competitive advantage is either won or lost. The nation influences the ability of its firms to succeed in particular industries. The outcome of many struggles in individual industries determines the state of a nation's economy and its ability to progress. Thus a firm must understand the national attributes that are most crucial in determining its ability, or inability, to create, foster, and sustain competitive advantage in international terms.A nation's standard of living in the long term depends on its ability to attain a high and rising level of productivity in the industries in which its firms compete. This rests on the capacity of its firms to achieve improving quality or greater efficiency. The influence of the home nation on the pursuit of competitive advantage in particular fields is of central importance to the level and rate of productivity growth achievable. The long-dominant model used to explain the influence of nations in succeeding internationally in particular industries is showing certain weaknesses. It is unable to explain why firms based in particular nations are able to compete successfully in particular industries, nor can it explain why a nation's firms are able to sustaintheir competitive positions over considerable periods of time.Porter explains, convincingly, wily previous efforts to explain the competitiveness of an entire nation have been unconvincing, and why attempting to do so is tackling the wrongquestion--as some see national competitiveness as a macroeconomicphenomenon, driven by such variables as exchange rates, interest rates, and budget deficits. Interestingly, many nations have experienced rapidly rising living standards despite budget deficits (Japan and Korea), appreciating currencies (Germany and Switzerland). and high interest rates (Italy and Korea). The view that competitiveness depends oil possessing abundant resources has been contradicted by the most successful trading nations which are resource-poor. Likewise, the view that competitiveness is the most strongly influenced by governmental policy (targeting, protection, export promotion, etc.) is not confirmed by a broader survey of experience conducted by the author.For Porter, the only meaningful concept of competitiveness at the national level is the national productivity with which a nation's resources are employed. Sustained productivity growth requires that an economy continually upgrade itself. A nation's firms must relentlessly improve productivity in existing industries by raising product quality, adding desirable features (differentiated products), improving product technology, boosting production efficiency or improving the quality of factors of production through technological progress. Firms musty also develop a capability to compete in even more sophisticated and new industry segments, where productivity is generally higher. This also absorbs human resourcesfreed up in the process of improving productivity in existing fields, say, with the introduction of automation.Expanding exports of competitive industries exerts an upward pressure on the exchange rate, making it more difficult for the relatively less productive industries in the nation to export. Employing subsidies and protection to maintain such industries only slows down the upgrading of the economy and limits the nation's long-term standard of living. Thus the ability of a nation to export many goods produced with high productivity, which allows the nation to import many goods involving lower productivity, is a more desirable target because it translates into higher national productivity. A fall in the world export share in the high productivity industries is a danger signal for a national economy. A rising sophisticationof exports can support productivity growth even if overall exports are growing slowly.To explain "competitiveness" at the national level, one must understand the determinants of productivity and the rate of productivity growth--inter-linkage of these determinants is the core of Porter's theory. To find answers, one should not focus on the economy as a whole but on specific industries and industry segments. This is because human resources, for example, which are the most decisive in modern international competition, must possess high levels of specialised skills in particular fields and be developed with much effort, just like the development of commercially successful technology. These are not the result of the general educational system alone. Competitive advantage is a dynamic and evolving process and is created and sustained through a highly localisedprocess. Differences in national economic structure, values, institutions, and histories contribute profoundly to competitive success. Itmust be underscored that cost advantage grows as much out of efficient-to-manufacture product designs and leading process technology as it does out of factor costs oz" even economies of scale.Four broad attributes (hereaftercalled the "Diamond") of a nation that shape the environment in which local firms compete (and which promote or impede the creation of competitive advantage) are:1. factor conditions: the nation's favourable positionin factors of production, and advanced and specialised factors, including communication infrastructure and highly educated personnel;2. demand condition: the nature of home demand for industry's product or service;3. related and supporting industries: the presence or absence in the nation of supplier industries and related industries that are internationally competitive;4. firm strategy, structure, and rivalry: the conditions in the nation governing how the companies are created, organised, and managed, and the nature of domestic rivalry.The role of government in national competitive advantage is important in influencing all four determinants.Porter suggests that a corporate leader firm must set its sights on creating and sustaining competitive advantage as measured against the best worldwide competitors. Firms should aspire tosustain success rather than mere survival or the temporary profits of harvesting market position. The following principles/ways are important for both domestic and global competition.1. Competitive advantage grows fundamentally out of improvement, innovation, and change.A company should actively seek out pressure and challenge, not try to avoid them. Some of the ways of doing so are as follows: sell to the most sophisticated and demanding buyers and channels; seek out the buyers with the most difficult needs; establish norms of exceeding the toughest regulatory hurdles or product standards; find sources from the most advanced and international home-based suppliers; treat employees as permanent; establish outstanding competitors as motivators: identify and serve buyers with the most anticipatory needs; investigate all emerging new buyers; find the localities whose regulations foreshadowthose elsewhere; discover and highlight the trends in factor costs; maintain ongoing relationships with centres of research and sources of the most talented people; study all competitors, especially the new and unconventional ones; bring some outsiders into the management team; and serve home buyers who are international and multinational.2. Competitive advantage involves the entire value system (array of activities). Close and ongoing interchange within the national cluster are integral to the process of creating andsustaining advantage. These interchanges include senior-level management contact, close links with R&D institutions, reciprocitywith researchers for testing new products, and cooperation in penetrating and serving international markets.3. Competitive advantage is sustained only through relentless improvement, continuous technological progress and efforts to differentiate products, and position in the home and global markets.4. Sustaining the advantage demands that its sources be upgraded. A firm should develop advanced human resources and internal technical capability; have more sources of advantage at its disposal so that the imitator has more to match. It should make its less sustainable advantages obsolete: for example, automating away much of the advantage of relatively low-cost and productive labour. Destroy old advantages by creating new ones, lest a rival should do so.5. Sustaining advantage ultimately requires a global approach to strategy. Penetrate foreign markets. Diversify production and serve sophisticated buyers and markets. Increase global production and foreign sourcing. Keep up with technology development abroad. Meet the best competitors. Locate regional headquarters. Select foreign acquisitions and make international alliances.In Porter's theory, there is a role for government policy to influence national advantage. However, government does not control the national advantage policy; it can only influence the "diamond". The central goal of the policy is to deploy a nation's resources with high and rising levels of productivity. The role of the government here is to stimulate such dynamism and upgrading.There is a wide range of government policies that have a bearing on national advantage in some industries. In this regard, education and training policy, science and technology policy, tax policy, health-care policy, anti-trust policy, regulatory policy, technical standards, environmental policy, fiscal and monetary policy, trade policy, provision of hard and soft infrastructure, procurement policies, and many others are relevant. Government policy has a role in shaping the breadth and international success of related and supporting industries in the country, and is integral to the competitive upgrading of other industries. Such policies include the policies towards the media and cluster formation. Finally, government policy has much influence on the way in which firms are created, organised, and managed; and on their goals, and on how they compete.This book has a strong message for the Pakistani economy, which is suffering from virtual stagnancy of total factor productivity as follows. Government policies towards industry in Pakistan must recognise that the "diamond" is a system, which makes policies in many areas interdependent. At present, a weak linkage has constrained the development of the economy. There is, thus, a need for progress on each determinant. Policies in Pakistan often aim to improve one aspect of the national environment but impose unintended consequencesby notaddressing the others.The Government should not overstate or overplayits role in national competitive advantage. Past policies have indeed adopted such a course, which has created an economy of dependent, backward-looking, and ultimately unsuccessful firms. The Government should recognise those areas in which it has a legitimate influence in creating the conditions for economic prosperity. As a top priority, the Government should provide an enabling environment for factor creation and formation of clusters, which already exist in some form The Government should also adopt policies that create an environment conducive to the development and advantage of industries and do not unnecessarily raise the cost of production. Local firms should be encouraged to be responsive to modern business and manufacturing practices.Zafar MahmoodPakistan Institute of Development Economics, Islamabad.。
《国家竞争优势理论》word版
国际竞争优势理论作者迈克尔•波特（Michael E．Porter）是哈佛大学商学研究院著名教授，当今世界上少数最有影响的管理学家之一。
他曾在1983年被任命为美国总统里根的产业竞争委员会主席，开创了企业竞争战略理论并引发了美国乃至世界的竞争力讨论热潮。
他还是世界各地很多企业领导和政府官员的顾问。
他先后获得过威尔兹经济学奖、亚当•斯密奖、三次获得麦肯锡奖，拥有很多大学的名誉博士学位。
到现在为止，波特已有十四本著作，其中最有影响的有《品牌间选择、战略及双边市场力量》（1976）、《竞争战略》（1980）、《竞争优势》（1985）、《国家竞争力》（1990）等。
简介国家竞争优势，又称“国家竞争优势钻石理论”，“钻石理论”。
由哈佛大学商学院教授迈克尔·波特（en::Michael E. Porter）在其代表作《国家竞争优势》（en::The Competitive Advantage of Nations）中提出，属于国际贸易理论之一。
国家竞争优势理论既是基于国家的理论，也是基于公司的理论。
根据H—O理论，多数国家必定会有相对优势。
如果国家在某一产品上的相对优势不是可持续的，那么这一相对优势就不是这个国家的竞争优势。
国家竞争优势理论试图解释如何才能造就并保持可持续的相对优势。
波特的国际竞争优势模型（又称钻石模型）包括四种本国的决定因素（country specific determinants）和两种外部力量。
四种本国的决定因素包括要素条件，需求条件，相关及支持产业，公司的战略、组织以及竞争。
两种外部力量是随机事件和政府。
波特认为，一国的贸易优势并不象传统的国际贸易理论宣称的那样简单地决定于一国的自然资源、劳动力、利率、汇率，而是在很大程度上决定于一国的产业创新和升级的能力。
由于当代的国际竞争更多地依赖于知识的创造和吸收，竞争优势的形成和发展已经日益超出单个企业或行业的范围，成为一个经济体内部各种因素综合作用的结果，一国的价值观、文化、经济结构和历史都成为竞争优势产生的来源。
与FDI有关的理论
垄断优势理论（Oligopolistic Model）1．代表人物：美国学者Stephen Herbert Hymer《The International Operations of National Firms ： A Study of Direct Investment》（1960）C. P. Kindleberger（美，Hymer 的导师）《Six Lectures on Direct Investment》（1969）垄断优势理论的主要观点：1、能够从事跨国经营和对外直接投资的企业拥有独到的特点，使它们具备不为同一外国市场上的其他公司（包括当地企业）所有的垄断或独占竞争优势；2、市场不完全竞争造成跨国企业垄断优势的存在，是对外直接投资的决定性因素；3、对外直接投资企业至少拥有四种垄断优势。
东道国的民族企业至少拥有三方面的优势：1、民族企业更能适应本国政治、经济、法律、文化诸因素所组成的投资环境；2、民族企业常能得到本国政府的优惠和保护；3、民族企业不必负担跨国经营企业所无法逃避的各种费用和风险。
（如直接投资的各种开支，汇率波动等）跨国企业的对外直接投资必须满足两个条件：1企业必须拥有竞争优势，以抵销在与当地企业竞争中的不利因素；2不完全市场的存在，使企业拥有和保持这些优势。
市场不完全的表现形式：1产品市场的不完全；2 要素市场的不完全；3 规模经济导致的市场不完全；4政府的（贸易）政策、管制措施等引起的市场不完全。
对外直接投资企业至少拥有四种垄断优势：1 技术优势2 规模经济3 资金和货币优势4 组织管理能力对“垄断优势理论”的评价（1）解释了跨国企业对外直接投资的主观条件和动因（2）无法解释为什么对外直接投资是唯一途径（3）无法解释发展中国家的对外直接投资活动内部化理论（Internalization Theory）1．代表人物英国经济学家R. H. Coase，《The Nature of the Firm》（1937）；英国学者Peter J. Buckley, Mark O. Casson，《The Future of the Multinational Enterprises》（1976）；加拿大学者A. M. Rugman。
The Competitive Advantage of Nations
政府的作用
从事产业竞争的是企业而非政府，
竞争优势的创造最终必然要反映 到企业上。 政府也无从决定应该发展哪项产 业，以及如何达到最适当的竞争 优势，而能做的只是提供企业所 需要的资源，创造产业发展和一 个支持提高竞争力的环境。 政府本身就是本国市场的主要客 户之一，政府在产业发展中应保 证国内市场处于活泼的竞争状态， 制定竞争规范和法律规范，确保 市场的繁荣有序。
亲，确实没 资源啊!!!
需求条件
需求主要是指本国市场的需求，国内
需求市场是产业发展的动力。 国内市场与国际市场的优势在于，企 业可以及时发现国内市场的客户需求。 因此，全球性的竞争并没有减少国内 市场的重要性，相关国家的消费者的 特性，比起市场的大小更为重要。 本地客户对产品的苛求程度越高，就 越能激发出该国企业的竞争优势。另 外一方面是预期性需求，如果本地的 顾客需求领先于其他国家，这也可以 成为本地企业的一种优势，因为先进 的产品需要前卫的需求来支持。
The Competitive Advantage of Nations
国家竞争优势
——MICHAEL E .，又称“钻石理论”。
由哈佛商学院教授迈克尔· 波特所著 《国家竞争优势》（The Competitive Advantage of Nations）一书中提出。 国家竞争优势是指，一个国家使其公 司或产业在同一产业领域创造和保持 竞争优势的能力。 它不仅对当今国际经济和贸易格局进 行了理论上的概括和总结，而且对国 家未来贸易地位的变化有一定的前瞻 性和预见性，为从事国际经济贸易理 论研究及其政策的制定提供了全新的 思路。
钻石理论模型
生产要素
生产要素可以被归纳为人力资源、天
然资源、知识资源、资本资源以及基 础设施五类。例如：气候、地理位置、 资金、现代通讯、交通等。 资源丰富和劳动力便宜的国家更多的 是发展劳动力密集的产业，但是这类 产业对大幅度提高国民收入不会有大 的突破，同时仅仅依赖初级生产要素 是无法获得全球竞争力的。 相反，人工短缺、资源不足、地理气 候条件恶劣等不利因素，反而会形成 一股刺激产业创新的压力，使得企业 加快对新手段的开发过程，促进企业 竞争优势的持久升级。
Competitive Advantage (Porter)
Steps in Strategic Cost Analysis
1. Identify the appropriate value chain and assign costs and assets to it. 2. Diagnose the cost drivers of each value activity and how they interact. 3. Identify competitor value chains, and determine the relative cost of competitors and the sources of cost differences. 4. Develop a strategy to lower relative cost position through controlling cost drivers or reconfiguring the value chain and/or downstream value.
Two Basic Types
Cost leadership Differentiation Both can be more broadly approached or narrow, which results in the third viable competitive strategy: - focus.
- Usually a recipe for below-average profitability compared to the industry - Still attractive profits are possible if and as long as the industry as a whole is very attractive - Manifestation of lack of choice - Especially risky for focusers that have been successful and then to loose their focus. They must seek for other niches rather then compromise their focus strategy.
波特国家竞争优势理论
总结:从比较优势到竞争优势
竞争优势强调 现实的竞争力。 比较优势侧重于 潜在的竞争力
Hale Waihona Puke •能够有效地降低后者的生产 能够有效地降低后者的生产 成本，不断与下游产业合作， 成本，不断与下游产业合作， 促进其创新。 促进其创新。
公司结构、战略和竞争
（1）国内公司间 ） 产品、 产品、市场的细分 可以阻碍外国 可以阻碍外国竞争 者的渗透。 者的渗透。
（3）国内激烈 ） 的竞争迫使企 业尽早向外扩 张，占领国际 市场。 市场。
•一个国家如果拥有对某一产业十分重要的某类低成本 一个国家如果拥有对某一产业十分重要的某类低成本 要素禀赋或者独特的高质量要素禀赋， 要素禀赋或者独特的高质量要素禀赋，该国的公司就 可能在该产业取得竞争优势。 可能在该产业取得竞争优势。
基本要素 要素 推进要素
自然资源、地理 位置、非熟练劳 动力 通过长期投资和 培育才能创造出 的要素
二、国家竞争优势的钻石模型
企业战略结构与竞争
要素状况
需求状况
相关及支撑产业
四大要素之外还存在两大变数 四大要素之外还存在两大变数： 变数： 政府与机会 机会是无法控制的，政府政策的影响 机会是无法控制的， 是不可漠视的。 是不可漠视的。
四组基本因素对国家竞争优势的影响
要素 条件
• 包括人力、物质、知识、资本资源和基础设施等。 包括人力、物质、知识、资本资源和基础设施等。
国内需求
(1)老练、挑剔的买主有助于高质量 标准的建立。 （2）前瞻性的买方需求有助于国 2 内公司在国际竞争中取得领先地位。 （3）国内需求的增长速度及买主 数量会对一国竞争优势产生影响。
相关产业、支撑产业
相关产业： 互补性的产 业 支撑产业： 某一产业的 上游产业
competitive advantage
part a: current situationpest analysisswot analysisporter’s 5 forcescompetitive advantage summary of current marketing significant findingsCA竞争优势（Competitive Advantage）是一种品质,而且这种品质是独特的,难以观测与测量,但是又能在竞争中明显地表现出来. CA 在竞争中培养,也是在日常工作中积累起来,但是必须要耐心与智慧,而不是随意或自然拥有. CA可以使公司在市场中得到的好处超过它的竞争对手. 保持CA使公司保持独特的竞争力,通过模仿与取代竞争对手而获得经济价值的能力. 根据CA,公司采取进攻性或防守性行为,为公司谋求在其行业中的防御地位,从而成功地应对各种优势,并为公司赢得超额回报(return on investment)3.专一化战略(Market focus/focus strategy) 是指公司专注于某一独特或者狭窄的客户,从而超过了较广阔领域的消费者. 这样可以满足特殊对象的需求而实现差异化. 可是专一化战略意味着限制了可以获得的市场份额, 专一化战略必然包含着利润率profit rate和销售额sales amount相互取代为代价的关系. 公司要么可以通过满足特定群体的需求而实现差异化，要么可以在为特定群体提供服务时降低成本，或者可以二者兼得.Market focus一般集中于竞争对手的弱点其中条件包括 1.拥有受欢迎的产品如 2.开发专有技术如 3.不渗透的市场结构,由于地理位置地理位置、收入水平、消费习惯、社会习俗等因素的不同，将形成专门化市场，这些市场之间的隔离性越强，越有利于专一化战略的实施如 4. 不容易模仿的产品.如2.差异化战略（differentiation) 是指公司向市场(包括生产者或者消费者)提供独特的利益,然而获得CA产品的过程和结果.first,differentiation给生产者带来利益可以有效回避与其他公司的正面竞争,使市场上缺乏可以比较的选择从而削弱消费者手上选择的权力.sencond,differentiation带给消费者的利益也非常明显,公司间不断的竞争使产品质量变得更好,产品价格更低,消费者的需求得到更贴切的满足.获得differentiation的途径有很多种,关键在于保持这些差异而不是一时拥有（substantive,not cosmetic). 获得differentiation 主要有三个途径 1. 功能创新一种独特的创新满足了从来未出现过的需求,这种途径通常通过获得专利（patents）或者商业秘密（Business Secret）以合法技术垄断来维护differentiation的优势 2.度身定做, 这是differentiation的最高形式. 产品根据每个群体的甚至每个人的不同需求来获得最大的满足,这种产品与一般产品没有什么不同,然而就是注重细节需求来获得差别.1.成本领先战略Overall cost leadership优势是指公司通过降低自己的生产成本cost of production和costs of Operating,使自身产品低于竞争者的产品价格,从而获得高市场占有率Market shares 与行业平均水平以上的利润. 实现这方面的优势,意味着公司成为行业内的低成本生产者.即使公司已经依靠低成本而获得优势,也必须要达到行业的平均水平,或者结合differentiation使用实现Overall cost leadership有三种方法:1.value chainanalysis 通过value chain analysis可以知道公司在行业内价值链所处的位置从而了解自身的劣势和竞争对手的优势2.Strategic Positioning analysis 公司的战略必须与同行的特点相匹配包括价格产品质量性能特色和服务等,根据以上因素制定公司战略 3. Cost Driver Analysis 在value chain analysis 和Strategic Positioning analysis的基础上还需要进行Cost Driver Analysis分析. 通过它可以知道可能把成本动因与特定价值作业之间的关系量化,从战略上考虑成本管理,以控制日常生产经营中大量潜在的问题。
The_competitive_advantages_of_Nations-_Porter
The competitive advantage of nations: is Porter’s Diamond Framework a new theory that explains the international competitiveness of countries?A.J. SmitA B S T R A C TThe focus of this article is to clarify the meaning of internationalcompetitiveness at the country level within in the context ofPorter’s (1990a) thesis that countries, like companies, competein international markets for their fair share of the world markets.At a country level, there are two schools of thought on countrycompetitiveness: the economic school, which rejects Porter’s notionof country competitiveness, and the management school, whichsupports the notion of competitiveness at a country level. This articlereviews and contrasts the theories pertaining to these two schools ofthought with specifi c reference to trade theories and the ‘theory’ ofthe competitive advantage of nations originally advanced by Porter(1990a, 1997a, 1998b, 1998c, 2000). Although Porter’s DiamondFramework has been extensively discussed in the managementliterature, its actual contribution to the body of knowledge in theeconomic and management literature has never been clarifi ed. Thepurpose of this article is to explain why Porter’s Diamond Frameworkis not a new theory that explains the competitiveness of countriesbut rather a framework that enhances our understanding of theinternational competitiveness of fi rms.Key words:P orter, Diamond Framework, international competition, competitiveness of countries, international business, national competitive advantage, countrysources of competitive advantageProf. A.J. Smit is an Associate Professor of International Business, Graduate School of Business Leadership, University of South Africa. E-mail: ajsmit@sbleds.ac.za105Southern African Business Review Volume 14 Number 1 2010A.J. SmitIntroduction“Today [South Africa] is part of a truly global economy. To maintain our standard of living, we must learn to compete in an ever tougher world market place. That’s why higher productivity and product quality have become essential. We need to move the economy into high-value sectors that will generate jobs for the future and the only way we can be competitive is to forge a new partnership between government and business” (Krugmann 1994a: 109). According to Krugman (1994a), this is the kind of statement one sees in academic journals and the popular press. It is also a statement that is popular among business people, journalists and management academics. It is a statement about the international competitiveness of countries. These kinds of statements are also propagated by the World Economic Forum in its Global Competitiveness Report (2008), which ranks countries in terms of their international competitiveness. Krugman (1994a: 7) claims that these kinds of statements and reports are “meaningless when applied to national economies”. According to Krugman (1991b, 1994a, 1994b, 1995a, 1995b, 1998), countries do not compete internationally. They are not like firms, competing with rivals in the global market place. Kohler (2006: 140) supports this belief that countries do not compete, because trade is a positive sum game and thus “a country’s welfare is ... determined by its absolute level of productivity and not by some international competitiveness rankings … In a trading world, productivity is magnified, in terms of its welfare potential by international exchange ...’’However, international competitiveness of countries is an ever-growing concern for governments, firms as well as academic scholars (Ketels 2006). It is also one of the most misused and misunderstood terms in the popular press and academic literature today. Daniels (1991: 56) calls it “the elusive concept of national competitiveness”. According to him, there is no consensus on how to measure, explain and predict international competitiveness of countries, and “perhaps none is warranted”.This new interest in country competitiveness has opened up the debate on the true meaning and understanding of international competitiveness of countries. The reason for the debate is based on the implicit assumption underlying the management theories that firm competitiveness can be extended to country competitiveness, as popularised by Porter (1990a) with his Diamond Framework and the world competitiveness reports.According to Stone and Ranchhod (2006: 284), Porter’s “focus on competition or ‘rivalry’ is a diversion from traditional economic thinking”. This general belief by management academics that countries are somehow in competition with one another probably explains why Porter’s (1990a) Diamond Framework appears in most international business textbooks. Peng (2009: 125) refers to it as the most 106The competitive advantage of nations recent theory that explains the international competitiveness of countries: “It is the first multilevel theory to realistically connect firms, industries and nations, whereas previous theories only work on one or two dimensions”. Hill (2009: 193) proclaims that “although much of the theory sounds true, it has never been subjected to rigorous testing”. However, thus far the Diamond ‘Theory’ is conspicuously absent from the international economics textbooks.To understand why so much emphasis is place on the Diamond Framework in the management literature and so little in the economic literature, a distinction has to be drawn between the meaning of ‘competitiveness’ at a country level and ‘international competitiveness’ at a firm level. At a firm level, international competitiveness does matter. This is well researched and cannot be disregarded (Dunning 1997; Teece 1998; Kogut 1998; Kogut & Zander 1993). International competition at the firm level has changed over the last decade because of the changing patterns of world trade, globalisation of the world economy, rapid dissemination of technology and information, and the rise of the transnational organisation. It is this emphasis on competition among firms in world markets that has renewed intellectual interest in international competitiveness at a country level (Porter 1990a, 2003; Rugman 1990, 1991; Dunning 2000), which has more recently been revisited by Aiginger (2006), Grilo and Koopman (2006), Kohler (2006), Ketels (2006), Siggel (2006) and Stone and Ranchhod (2006).The focus of this article is on the debate as to whether or not countries compete internationally, as proclaimed by Porter (1990a). There are two schools of thought; the economic school, which ignores Porter’s notion of country competitiveness, and the management school, which supports the notion of competitiveness at a country level. This article reviews and contrasts the theories underlying the two schools of thought. Although Porter’s Diamond Framework has been extensively discussed in the management literature, its actual contribution to the body of knowledge in the economic and management literature has never been clarified. The purpose of this article is to explain why Porter’s Diamond Framework is not a new theory that explains the international competitiveness of countries.The first section of this article gives a short synoptic overview of trade theory in order to provide some background on how economists differ from management specialists on the issue of international competitiveness at a country level. The aim is not to provide a detailed exposition of the different trade theories but to review the theories as background for the discussion of Porter’s (1990a) Diamond Framework, which explains the competitive advantage of nations. The second section examines Porter’s (1990a) Diamond Framework within the context of the trade theories. The Diamond Framework draws heavily on different theories of107A.J. Smiteconomics, but uses a conversational style that is distinctly different from that used by many economists. Porter uses verbal descriptions of the different trade theories based on logical reasoning instead of the mathematical models that dominate the economic profession (Ketels 2006). This is easier for policy-makers to understand and thus creates the impression that the Diamond Framework can be utilised to enhance the international competitiveness of countries. The main risk of this is that competitiveness of countries may be understood as a negative sum game, whereas, according to international trade theory, it is a positive sum game. The last section draws some generalisations about the validity of Porter’s Diamond Framework as a theory of the international competitiveness of countries and explains the significant contribution of the framework towards our understanding of the international competitiveness of firms.Trade theories and the international competitiveness of countriesThe first attempt to explain why countries engage freely in international trade has its origin in 1876 with Adam Smith’s theory of absolute advantage (Krugman & Obstfeld 2003). According to this theory, a country can enhance its prosperity if it specialises in producing goods and services in which it has an absolute cost advantage over other countries and imports those goods and services in which it has an absolute cost disadvantage. This theory explains why countries, through imports, can increase their welfare by simultaneously selling goods and services in international markets. Adam Smith thus viewed trade as a positive sum game. This was in direct contrast to the viewpoint of the mercantilists of the 16th century that trade is a zero sum game. They believed that if countries wanted to become rich and powerful, they must export more and restrict imports to the minimum. Such a policy would result in an inflow of gold and silver that would make the country wealthy. Because they viewed trade as a zero sum game, they advocated strict government control and preached economic nationalism (Salvatore 2002).The theory of absolute advantage became a paradox, however, in the sense that a country that had an absolute advantage in all products or services it produces would not import because it could produce more efficiently. According to Krugman (1995b), however, it is imports rather than exports that matter for a country. Exports are important in order to pay for the imports a county needs. According to Adam Smith’s hypothesis, some countries will be excluded from importing and thus from the gains from trade. This paradox that absolute cost advantage leads to specialisation, but that 108The competitive advantage of nations such specialisation may not necessarily lead to gains from trade, gave rise to Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantage.Comparative advantageAccording to the law of comparative advantage, a country must specialise in those products that it can produce relatively more efficiently than other countries (Krugman & Obstfeld 2003). This implies that despite absolute cost disadvantages in the production of goods and services, a country can still export those goods and services in which its absolute disadvantages are the smallest and import products with the largest absolute disadvantage. It also implies that a country with absolute cost advantages in all its products will specialise and export those products where the absolute advantage is the largest, and will import products with the smallest absolute advantages. Comparative advantage thus also leads to specialisation, but differs from specialisation based on absolute advantage, in that a country will always import, whether or not it is more or less efficient overall in the production of all goods and services relative to other countries.The question that frequently arises, and that is sometimes the source of confusion with regard to the law of comparative advantage, is how is it possible for a country that is less efficient in the production of all products to export any of these products to another country that is more efficient in the production of all these products? The answer lies in the self-equilibrating nature of the trade balance between countries (Krugman 1993a). This means that in equilibrium, if the input cost is sufficiently lower in one country than another country, the price of the product will be lower in the low input cost country, even if that country is less efficient in the production of the product (Salvatore 2002). Any deviations from equilibrium will automatically realign the exchange rate between the two countries to ensure new trade equilibrium.Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantage is based on the labour theory of value (Salvatore 2002). This implies that labour is the only production factor and that it is used in fixed proportions in the production of all products. The theory also assumes that labour is homogeneous (Salvatore 2002). These unrealistic assumptions led to the incorporation of opportunity cost into the explanation of the theory of comparative advantage. If the Ricardian theory of comparative advantage is redefined in terms of opportunity cost, then a country will have a comparative advantage in the production of goods and services if such goods and services can be produced at a lower opportunity cost. This implies that a country will have a comparative cost advantage in the production of those goods and services that can be produced at a lower opportunity cost than in other countries (Salvatore 2002).109A.J. SmitAlthough the theory of comparative cost advantage is based on a set of strict assumptions, this does not invalidate the general acceptance of the theory in explaining gains from trade (Krugman 1990; Culbertson 1986; Keesing 1966; Vernon 1979). This is furthermore underscored by the fact that most of the principles of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) are based on the belief in the validity of the law of comparative advantage (Root 2001). Even the relaxation of most of the assumptions does not affect the general validity of the theory in any significant way (Harkness 1983; Sweikausks 1983; Balassa 1965), and enough empirical evidence exists to support the theory of comparative advantage (Bernhofen & Brown 2004; Schott 2004; Uchida & Cook 2005; Krugman & Obstfeld 2003).The superiority of the theory of comparative advantage lies in the remarkable amount of useful information that it summarises clearly and concisely. According to Salvatore (2002: 91): “It shows the conditions of production, the autarky point of production and consumption, the equilibrium relative commodity prices in the absence of trade, the comparative advantage of each nation ... it also shows the degree of specialisation in production with trade, the volume of trade, the terms of trade, the gains from trade, and the share of these gains to each of the trading nations.” It is this power of the theory that provides a convincing explanation why trade is a positive sum game (Krugman 1992, 1993b, 1994a, 1994b, 1995a, 1998).The theory of comparative advantage, as discussed thus far, does not explain the location of these advantages. Whereas the Ricardian model of trade conveys the essential idea of comparative advantage, it does not explain the direction of trade. Economists thus needed an alternative model of comparative advantage to explain the direction of trade.An important theory to explain the reasons, or causes, of comparative advantage differences between countries is the Heckscher-Ohlin (H-O) theory (Salvatore 2002). According to this theory, countries differ with respect to their factor intensities, namely the labour and capital that are used in the production of goods and services. While there are many different resource explanations of comparative advantage, the H-O theory isolates factor abundance or endowments as the basic determinant of comparative advantage. Although the H-O theory is based on a set of simplifying assumptions, relaxing these assumptions modifies but does not invalidate the theory (Salvatore 2002).A number of empirical studies have been conducted to verify the H-O theory. One of the first such studies was conducted by Leontief (1953), who found that, irrespective of the general believe that the US was expected to be an exporter of capital-intensive products and an importer of labour-intensive products, the results confirmed just the opposite. The paradox was later confirmed by Baldwin (1971). 110The competitive advantage of nations Similar results were reported in studies based on data for Japan, Germany, India and Canada (Baldwin 1979).The Leontief paradox has led economists to look for alternative explanations for the H-O theory. The most important of these was the introduction of differences in human capital (Karvis 1956; Kenen 1965; Keesing 1966; Baldwin 1971; Bowen 1985) as an explanation of the paradox. Others were the product cycle theory (Vernon 1966) and the technology gap theories (Gurber, Metha & Vernon 1967; Gold 1981) that incorporate time as a dynamic extension to the basic H-O theory. Most of these theories were mere modifications and extensions of the basic H-O theory and did not reduce the validity of the theory in explaining the direction of trade between countries.While it is generally accepted that these theories explain inter-industry trade sufficiently, they fail to explain intra-industry trade (Grubel & Lloyd 1975). To explain intra-industry trade, economists put forth a new set of trade theories that relax the assumptions of perfect competition and constant economies of scale. These new trade theories opened up the debate around government intervention as an active policy to advance the international competitiveness of a country.New trade theoryUp until the 1970s, international trade theory was dominated by the theory of comparative advantage, which can be loosely defined as trade due to differences between countries. Two of the basic underlying assumptions of comparative advantage are perfect competition and constant returns to scale. In terms of these assumptions, monopoly profits are competed away as firms strive to improve their strategic positions in markets.Since World War II, however, a large and growing part of trade has come from massive two-way trade in similar industries (Grubel & Lloyd 1975; Linder 1961; Vernon 1966; Krugman 1990) that could not be explained by comparative advantage and was principally driven by advantages resulting from economies of scale. This changing pattern of world trade has made the traditional assumption of constant returns to scale unworkable to explain intra-industry trade. A new approach was needed to explain the advantages of trade due to large-scale production, cumulative experience and transitory advantages resulting from innovation. Furthermore, to explain economies of scale (internal and external), a new market structure was needed that was altogether different from perfect competition (Krugman 1986).The breakthrough came during the late 1970s with the introduction of new models of monopolistic competition by industrial organisational theorists (Spence111A.J. Smit1976; Dixit & Stiglitz 1977) that allowed trade theorists (Krugman 1980, 1981, 1983; Lancaster 1980; Helpman 1981; Ethier 1982a, 1982b) to overcome the complexity of modelling oligopolistic rivalry in a general equilibrium framework. The main appeal for using monopolistic competition was to focus on economies of scale as the core in explaining trade rather than on imperfect competition (Krugman 1990).The difference between the traditional and the new trade theory (based on monopolistic competition) is that at the level of inter-industry trade, comparative advantage continues to be the dominant explanation of trade flows, whereas at the level of intra-industry trade, economies of scale become the dominant explanation of trade flows in differentiated products. The similarity is that in both the traditional and the new thinking about trade, advantage comes through specialisation. However, in the former, specialisation takes place because of country differences, while in the latter, the inherent advantage of specialisation is based on increasing returns.What the new trade theory does not explain is where the actual location of production will be, as in the case of comparative advantage (H-O model). In the case of comparative advantage, the underlying resource differences between countries determine the location of production, whereas under increasing returns, the answer is more likely to depend on historical accident (Krugman 1988). However, the location implication of increasing returns, when it is present, will keep the industry in a specific location that will be difficult to be competed away by industries of another country (Krugman & Obstfeld 2003), which in effect gives a country a comparative advantage in that industry without any government intervention.The most important insight of the new trade theory based on monopolistic competition (as far as this article is concerned) is that under free trade there will be gains from trade (Krugman 1987, 1991a, 1992), which implies, as in the case of comparative advantage, that trade is a positive sum game (Krugman 1992).Monopolistic competition, however, is not a true reflection of the real world. Many of today’s global industries are characterised by oligopolistic competition (Yoffie 1995), where economies of scale at the level of the firm are sufficient to limit the number of competitors (Krugman 1992). The focus in the economic trade literature therefore changed from analysing economies of scale as the core in explaining trade to imperfect competition as the core (Krugman 1990). The result was a set of trade models that assumed an oligopoly market structure (Krugman & Obstfeld 2003). The main emphasis of these models is that even in the complete absence of comparative advantage, trade still occurs as two-way trade in identical products, and that such trade can be mutually beneficial in industries where internal economies of scale are important (Krugman & Obstfeld 2003). However, the problem with models of this type is that they allow for the possibility that government protection 112The competitive advantage of nations can shift specialisation to a protecting country (Krugman 1990). This opened up the argument that government policy (strategic trade policy) can change the terms of oligopolistic rivalry in such a way as to shift excess returns from foreign to domestic firms (Krugman 1987).The modelling of trade within an oligopolistic market structure framework has resulted in the possibility of industry targeting where government policy can play a significant role. In such cases, government policies may shift profits from a foreign firm to a domestic competitor, which may result in national gain at the expense of a foreign country, provided that the foreign government does not retaliate (Corden 1990; Krugman 1990). Because these models support a mercantilist idea of the world, they made the strategic trade policy argument attractive from a policy perspective. This strengthened the notion that countries, like firms, compete for their fair share of world markets and that governments have a major role to play in this competitive game (Magaziner & Reich 1983; Magaziner & Patinkin 1990; Tyson 1992; Thurow 1992; Luttwak 1993; Dunning 1995; Porter 1998a; Prestowitz 1998; Garelli 2003; Frenkel Koske & Swonke 2003; Budd & Hirmis 2004; Thompson 2004; Giap 2004; Fendel & Frenkel 2005; Ezeala-Harrison 2005). The question, however, is the extent to which these models are a true reflection of the real world of international trade, how they fit the data, and whether they replace the conventional orthodox theory of comparative advantage.If international markets are to a large degree imperfectly competitive, then this implies that trade between similar countries is driven by economies of scale rather than comparative advantage (Krugman 1980, 1981; Lancaster 1980; Helpman 1981; Ethier 1982a, 1982b). In that case, trade based on oligopolistic behaviour can be viewed as a good approximation of how the real world works. However, the policy implications of these kind of models (Brander & Krugman 1983; Brander & Spencer 1985; Eaton & Grossman 1986) depend on the assumptions of the model, because according to Krugman (1987), these models are all based on special assumptions, whereby small variations in the assumptions can result in different conclusions. All of this introduced considerable distrust and uncertainty into the strategic trade policy argument and questioned the validity of these models (Krugman 1987; Corden 1990).A further criticism of the strategic trade policy argument is the partial equilibrium nature of the new trade models, and any attempt through government policies to favour some domestic firms over foreign firms may put the foreign firms at a competitive disadvantage (Krugman 1988, 1990). Thus for strategic trade policy to be successful, the assumption should be that governments are smarter than markets; not only about the targeted industries, but also about how targeting will affect all the other industries in the country (Krugman 1987, 1996). Strategic trade policy thus113A.J. Smitassumes that governments can spot winners before business or entrepreneurs can, and that foreign governments will not react to counter this, which seems to be an unrealistic assumption.Although strategic trade policy supports interventionist policies that are desirable for domestic firms, at a country level this may lead to a counter-reaction by other countries and thus ignite a spiral of protectionist policies. Thus intervention may not be in the best interest of a country (Krugman 1992) and thus may imply a movement away from free trade to protectionism.The empirical evidence in support of strategic trade policy is also not conclusive. Studies by Cox and Harris (1985) and Dixit (1988) have found no explicit welfare gains in favour of strategic trade policy or that any deviation from free trade will result in significant gains from strategic trade policy actions. In general, the conclusions from empirical research have shown that it will be extremely difficult for any government to identify strategic industries, and even if it is remotely possible to identify such industries, the payoffs would be very modest from an overall welfare perspective (Krugman & Smith 1994; Krugman 1996; Bernhofen & Brown 2004; Schott 2004; Uchida & Cook 2005).As discussed, the limited theoretical and empirical justification in support of strategic trade theory is not sufficiently conclusive to reject the principle of comparative advantage in favour of strategic trade intervention. According to Siggel (2006: 140), “any trade that results in welfare gains needs to be based on comparative advantage, irrespective of the nature of its sources. The sources may be Ricardian productivity differences (or different technologies), or they may be differences in factor endowments that are reflected by factor cost differentials. But they may also include differences in the scale of production, for firms that share the same cost function”. Thus the kind of sophisticated intervention suggested by strategic trade policy may eventually result in political rivalry between countries in which the negative consequences of such political rivalry outweigh the potential gains from free trade (Bhagwati, Krugman, Baldwin, Collins et al. 1993; Krugman & Obstfeld 2003).Although the new trade theories of monopolistic and oligopolistic competition challenge the orthodoxy of free trade, they do not provide any explanation of where the actual location of production will take place. In contrast, comparative advantage not only explains the direction and gains of trade between countries, but also determines a country’s relative location advantages. Porter (1990a, 1998b), however, questioned the ability of traditional trade theory to explain location advantages and therefore proposed a ‘new theory’ to explain location advantages and thus the competitive advantage of nations. As Stone and Ranchhod (2006: 284) explain, “Porter (1990a) clearly disagrees with what he calls ‘standard economic theory’ … [he] even dares 114。
国家竞争优势-外文翻译
外文翻译原文The Competitive Advantage of NationsMaterial Source: Author: Michael E. Porter National prosperity is created, not inherited. It does not grow out of a country’s natural endowments, its labor pool, its interest rates, or its cu rrency’s value, as classical economics insists.A nation’s competitiveness depends on the capacity of its industry to innovate and upgrade. Companies gain advantage against the world’s best competitors because of pressure and challenge. They benefit from having strong domestic rivals, aggressive home based suppliers, and demanding local customers.In a world of increasingly global competition, nations have become more, not less, important. As the basis of competition has shifted more and more to the creation and assimilation of knowledge, the role of the nation has grown.Why are certain companies based in certain nations capable of consistent innovation? Why do they ruthlessly pursue improvements, seeking an evermore sophisticated source of competitive advantage? Why are they able to overcome the substantial barriers to change and innovation that so often accompany success?The answer lies in four broad attires of a nation, attributes that individually and as a system constitute the diamond of national advantage, the playing field that each nation establishes and operates for its industries.The four broad attributes of a nation are as follows:1．Factor Conditions. The nation's position in factors of production, such as skilled labor or infrastructure, necessary to compete in a given industry.2. Demand conditions. The nature of home-market demand for the industry's product or service.3. Related and supporting industries. The presence or absence in the nation of supplier industries that is internationally competitive.4. Firm strategy, structure, and rivalry. The conditions in the nation governing how companies are created organized and managed, as well as the nature of domestic rivalry.The most important factors of production are those that involve sustained and heavy investment and are specialized. Basic factors, such as a pool of labor or a local raw material source, do not constitute an advantage in knowledge-intensive industries. Companies can access them easily through a global strategy or circumvent them through technology. Contrary to conventional wisdom, simply having a general work force that is high school or even college educated represents no competitive advantage in modern international competition. To support competitive advantage, a factor must be highly specialized to an industry's particular needs-a scientific institute specialized in optics, a pool of venture capital to fund software companies. These factors are scarcer, more difficult for foreign competitors to imitate-and they require sustained investment to create.Nations succeed in industries where they are particularly good at factor creation. Competitive advantage results from the presence of world-class institutions that first create specialized factors and then continually work to upgrade them. Denmark has two hospitals that concentrate in studying and treating diabetes-and a world-leading export position in insulin. Holland has premier research institutes in the cultivation, packaging, and shipping of flowers, where it is the world's export leader.What is not so obvious, however, is that selective disadvantages in the more basic factors can prod a company to innovate and upgrade-a disadvantage in a static model of competition can become an advantage in a dynamic one. When there is an ample supply of cheap raw materials or abundant labor, companies can simply rest on these advantages and often deploy them inefficiently. But when companies face a selective disadvantage, like high land costs, labor shortages, or the lack of local raw materials, they must innovate and upgrade to compete.It might seem that the globalization of competition would diminish the importance of home demand. In practice, however, this is simply not the case. Nations gain competitive advantage in industries where the home demand gives their companies a clearer or earlier picture of emerging buyer needs, and where demanding buyers’ pressure companies to innovate faster and achievemore sophisticated competitive advantages than their foreign rivals.Home-demand conditions help build competitive advantage when a particular industry segment is larger or more visible in the domestic market than in the foreign markets. The larger market segments in a nation receive the most attention from the nation's companies. Companies accord smaller or less desirable segments a lower priority. A good example is hydraulic excavators, which represent the most widely used type of construction equipment in the Japanese domestic market-but which comprise a far smaller proportion of the market in other advanced nations.More important than the mix of segments is the nature of domestic buyers. A nation's companies gain competitive advantage if domestic buyers are the world's most sophisticated and demanding buyers for the product or service. Sophisticated, demanding buyers provide a window into advanced customer needs. They pressure companies to meet high standards. They prod them to improve, to innovate, and to upgrade into more advanced segments. As with factor conditions, demand conditions provide advantages by forcing companies to respond to tough challenges.Local buyers can help a nation's companies gain advantage if their needs anticipate or even shape those of other nations-if their needs provide ongoing "early-warning indicators" of global market trends. Sometimes anticipatory needs emerge because a nation's political values foreshadow needs that will grow elsewhere. Sweden's long-standing concern for handicapped people has spawned an increasingly competitive industry focused on special needs. Denmark's environmentalism has led to success for companies in water-pollution control equipment and windmills.More generally, a nation's companies can anticipate global trends if the nation's values are spreading-that is, if the country is exporting its values and tastes as well as its products. Nations export their values and tastes through media, through training foreigners, through political influence, and through the foreign activities of their citizens and companies.The third broad determinant of national advantage is the presence in the nation of related and supporting industries that are internationally competitive. Internationally competitive home-based suppliers create advantages in downstream industries in several ways. First, they deliver the most cost-effective inputs in an efficient, early, rapid, and sometimes preferential way. Italian gold and silver jewelry companies lead the world in that industryin part because other Italian companies supply two-thirds of the world's jewelry-making and precious-metal recycling machinery.Far more significant than mere access to components and machinery, however, is the advantage that home-based related and supporting industries provide in innovation and upgrading-an advantage based on close working relationships. Suppliers and end-users located near each other can take advantage of short lines of communication, quick and constant flow of information, and an ongoing exchange of ideas and innovations. Companies have the opportunity to influence their suppliers' technical efforts and can serve as test sites for R&D work, accelerating the pace of innovation.The nation's companies benefit most when the suppliers are, themselves, global competitors. It is ultimately self-defeating for a company or country to create "captive" suppliers who are totally dependent on the domestic industry and prevented from serving foreign competitors. By the same token, a nation need not be competitive in all supplier industries for its companies to gain competitive advantage. Companies can readily source from abroad materials, components, or technologies without a major effect on innovation or performance of the industry's products. The same is true of other generalized technologies-like electronics or software-where the industry represents a narrow application area.National circumstances and context create strong tendencies in how companies are created, organized, and managed, as well as what the nature of domestic rivalry will be. In Italy, for example, successful international competitors are often small or medium-sized companies that are privately owned and operated like extended families. In German, in contrast, companies tend to be strictly hierarchical in organization and management practices, and top managers usually have technical backgrounds.Countries also differ markedly in the goals that companies and individuals seek to achieve. Company goals reflect the characteristics of national capital markets and the compensation practices for managers. For example, in Germany and Switzerland, where banks comprise a substantial part of the nation's shareholders, most shares are held for long-term appreciation and are rarely traded.The presence of strong local rivals is a final, and powerful, stimulus to the creation and persistence of competitive advantage. This is true of smallcountries, like Switzerland, where the rivalry among its pharmaceutical companies, Hoffmann-La Roche, Ciba-Geigy, and Sandoz, contributes to a leading worldwide position.Each of these four attributes defines a point on the diamond of national advantage. The effect of one point often depends on the state of others. At the broadest level, weaknesses in any one determinant will constrain an industry's potential for advancement and upgrading.译文国家竞争优势资料来源: 作者：Michael E.Porter 国家的财富是创造出来的，不是继承来的。
Porter's Competitive Advantage of Nations
PORTER’S COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE OF NATIONS: TIME FOR THE FINAL JUDGEMENT?
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The Hong Kong PolHale Waihona Puke technic University
When The Competitive Advantage of Nations (CAN ) was published in 1990 it triggered a wave of interest, as befits a significant development in the work of the world’s best known business academic (de Man, 1994). Much of that interest manifested
Porter’s (1990) Competitive Advantage of Nations (CAN ) was heralded on publication as a book which could build a bridge between the theoretical literatures in strategic management and international economics, and provide the basis for improved national policies on ‘competitiveness’. This review of CAN draws on papers written since its publication to show that while it was enormously rich in its range and scope it fell far short of the claims made for it. That failure arose from a number of sources. Most fundamentally, there were elisions with respect to the object of the analysis which meant that explanations for productivity at national level became confused with explanations for industry level success in gaining market share. Second, there were fundamental misunderstandings of the factors which determine trade, particularly with respect to the principle of comparative advantage. Third, there were flaws in the methodology and mode of reasoning. Finally, the assertions which form the heart of CAN have been refuted. Sustained prosperity may be achieved without a nation becoming ‘innovation-driven’, strong ‘diamonds’ are not in place in the home bases of many internationally successful industries and inward foreign direct investment does not indicate a lack of ‘competitiveness’ or low national productivity. Policy-makers are left with a ‘laundry list’ on which to base simple SWOT-type analyses of their economies, but there is no reliable guide to policy. Developing countries in particular are inadvertently encouraged to pursue policies which might be harmful. Porter generalized inappropriately from the American experience, while confusing competition at industry level with trade at national level. CAN’s failure suggests that academicians of international business would be well advised to revisit the elementary economics of trade and growth before venturing too boldly into the field of policy.
The Competitive Advantage of Nations
D ON O T C O P Y The Competitive Advantage of NationsMichael E.PorterHarvard Business Review90211D ON O T C O P Y HBRMARCH–APRIL 1990The Competitive Advantage of NationsMichael E.PorterNational prosperity is created,not inherited.It does of the patterns of competitive success in ten leading trading nations,contradict the conventional wisdom not grow out of a country’s natural endowments,its labor pool,its interest rates,or its currency’s value,that guides the thinking of many companies and na-tional governments—and that is pervasive today in as classical economics insists.A nation’s competitiveness depends on the capacity the United States.(For more about the study,see the insert ‘‘Patterns of National Competitive Success.’’)of its industry to innovate and panies gain advantage against the world’s best competitors According to prevailing thinking,labor costs,inter-est rates,exchange rates,and economies of scale are because of pressure and challenge.They benefit from having strong domestic rivals,aggressive home-based the most potent determinants of competitiveness.In companies,the words of the day are merger,alliance,suppliers,and demanding local customers.In a world of increasingly global competition,na-strategic partnerships,collaboration,and suprana-tional globalization.Managers are pressing for more tions have become more,not less,important.As the basis of competition has shifted more and more to government support for particular industries.Among governments,there is a growing tendency to experi-the creation and assimilation of knowledge,the role of the nation has petitive advantage is ment with various policies intended to promote na-tional competitiveness—from efforts to manage created and sustained through a highly localized pro-cess.Differences in national values,culture,eco-exchange rates to new measures to manage trade to policies to relax antitrust—which usually end up nomic structures,institutions,and histories all contribute to competitive success.There are striking only undermining it.(See the insert ‘‘What Is Na-tional Competitiveness?’’)differences in the patterns of competitiveness in every country;no nation can or will be competitive These approaches,now much in favor in both companies and governments,are flawed.They funda-in every or even most industries.Ultimately,nations succeed in particular industries because their home mentally misperceive the true sources of competi-tive advantage.Pursuing them,with all their short-environment is the most forward-looking,dynamic,and challenging.term appeal,will virtually guarantee that the United States—or any other advanced nation—never These conclusions,the product of a four-year studyachieves real and sustainable competitive advantage.We need a new perspective and new tools—an ap-Harvard Business School professor Michael E.Porter is the author proach to competitiveness that grows directly out of of Competitive Strategy (Free Press,1980)and Competitive Ad-an analysis of internationally successful industries,vantage (Free Press,1985)and will publish The Competitive Ad-without regard for traditional ideology or current in-vantage of Nations (Free Press)in May 1990.tellectual fashion.We need to know,very simply,Author’s note:Michael J.Enright,who served as project coordina-tor for this study,has contributed valuable suggestions.what works and why.Then we need to apply it.D ON O T C O P Y cumbered by blinding assumptions or conventional How Companies Succeed in wisdom.International MarketsThis is why innovators are often outsiders from a different industry or a different country.Innovation may come from a new company,whose founder has Around the world,companies that have achieved international leadership employ strategies that differ a nontraditional background or was simply not ap-preciated in an older,established company.Or the from each other in every respect.But while every successful company will employ its own particular capacity for innovation may come into an existing company through senior managers who are new to strategy,the underlying mode of operation—the character and trajectory of all successful compa-the particular industry and thus more able to per-ceive opportunities and more likely to pursue them.nies—is fundamentally the same.Companies achieve competitive advantage Or innovation may occur as a company diversifies,bringing new resources,skills,or perspectives to an-through acts of innovation.They approach innova-tion in its broadest sense,including both new other industry.Or innovations may come from another nation with different circumstances or dif-technologies and new ways of doing things.They perceive a new basis for competing or find better ferent ways of competing.With few exceptions,innovation is the result of means for competing in old ways.Innovation can be manifested in a new product design,a new produc-unusual effort.The company that successfully im-plements a new or better way of competing pursues tion process,a new marketing approach,or a new way of conducting training.Much innovation is its approach with dogged determination,often in the face of harsh criticism and tough obstacles.In fact,mundane and incremental,depending more on a cu-mulation of small insights and advances than on a to succeed,innovation usually requires pressure,ne-cessity,and even adversity:the fear of loss often single,major technological breakthrough.It often involves ideas that are not even ‘‘new’’—ideas that proves more powerful than the hope of gain.Once a company achieves competitive advantage have been around,but never vigorously pursued.It always involves investments in skill and knowledge,through an innovation,it can sustain it only through relentless improvement.Almost any advantage as well as in physical assets and brand reputations.Some innovations create competitive advantage by can be imitated.Korean companies have already matched the ability of their Japanese rivals to mass-perceiving an entirely new market opportunity or by serving a market segment that others have ignored.produce standard color televisions and VCRs;Brazil-ian companies have assembled technology and When competitors are slow to respond,such innova-tion yields competitive advantage.For instance,in designs comparable to Italian competitors in casual leather footwear.industries such as autos and home electronics,Japa-nese companies gained their initial advantage by em-Competitors will eventually and inevitably over-take any company that stops improving and innovat-phasizing smaller,more compact,lower capacity models that foreign competitors disdained as less ing.Sometimes early-mover advantages such as customer relationships,scale economies in existing profitable,less important,and less attractive.In international markets,innovations that yield technologies,or the loyalty of distribution channels are enough to permit a stagnant company to retain competitive advantage anticipate both domestic and foreign needs.For example,as international concern its entrenched position for years or even decades.But sooner or later,more dynamic rivals will find a way for product safety has grown,Swedish companies like Volvo,Atlas Copco,and AGA have succeeded to innovate around these advantages or create a bet-ter or cheaper way of doing things.Italian appliance by anticipating the market opportunity in this area.On the other hand,innovations that respond to con-producers,which competed successfully on the basis of cost in selling midsize and compact appliances cerns or circumstances that are peculiar to the home market can actually retard international competitive through large retail chains,rested too long on this initial advantage.By developing more differentiated success.The lure of the huge U.S.defense market,for instance,has diverted the attention of U.S.materials products and creating strong brand franchises,Ger-man competitors have begun to gain ground.and machine-tool companies from attractive,global commercial markets.Ultimately,the only way to sustain a competitive advantage is to upgrade it—to move to more sophisti-Information plays a large role in the process of innovation and improvement—information that ei-cated types.This is precisely what Japanese auto-makers have done.They initially penetrated foreign ther is not available to competitors or that they do not seek.Sometimes it comes from simple invest-markets with small,inexpensive compact cars of ad-equate quality and competed on the basis of lower ment in research and development or market re-search;more often,it comes from effort and from labor costs.Even while their labor-cost advantage persisted,however,the Japanese companies were up-openness and from looking in the right place unen-D ON Ograding.They invested aggressively to build large ruthlessly pursue improvements,seeking an ever-more sophisticated source of competitive advantage?modern plants to reap economies of scale.Then they became innovators in process technology,pioneering Why are they able to overcome the substantial barri-ers to change and innovation that so often accom-just-in-time production and a host of other quality and productivity practices.These process improve-pany success?The answer lies in four broad attributes of a nation,ments led to better product quality,better repair re-cords,and better customer-satisfaction ratings than attributes that individually and as a system consti-tute the diamond of national advantage,the playing foreign competitors had.Most recently,Japanese au-tomakers have advanced to the vanguard of product field that each nation establishes and operates for its industries.These attributes are.technology and are introducing new,premium brand names to compete with the world’s most prestigious 1.Factor Conditions.The nation’s position in fac-passenger cars.tors of production,such as skilled labor or infra-The example of the Japanese automakers also illus-structure,necessary to compete in a given trates two additional prerequisites for sustaining industry.competitive advantage.First,a company must adopt 2.Demand Conditions.The nature of home-mar-a global approach to strategy.It must sell its product ket demand for the industry’s product or service.worldwide,under its own brand name,through inter- 3.Related and Supporting Industries.The pres-national marketing channels that it controls.A truly ence or absence in the nation of supplier indus-global approach may even require the company to tries and other related industries that are locate production or R&D facilities in other nations internationally competitive.to take advantage of lower wage rates,to gain or 4.Firm Strategy,Structure,and Rivalry.The con-improve market access,or to take advantage of for-ditions in the nation governing how companies eign technology.Second,creating more sustainable are created,organized,and managed,as well as advantages often means that a company must make the nature of domestic rivalry.its existing advantage obsolete—even while it is still an advantage.Japanese auto companies recognized These determinants create the national environ-this;either they would make their advantage obso-ment in which companies are born and learn how lete,or a competitor would do it for them.to compete.(See the diagram ‘‘Determinants of Na-As this example suggests,innovation and change tional Competitive Advantage.’’)Each point on theare inextricably tied together.But change is an unnat-ural act,particularly in successful companies;power-ful forces are at work to avoid and defeat it.Past approaches become institutionalized in standard op-erating procedures and management controls.Train-ing emphasizes the one correct way to do anything;the construction of specialized,dedicated facilities solidifies past practice into expensive brick and mor-tar;the existing strategy takes on an aura of invinci-bility and becomes rooted in the company culture.Successful companies tend to develop a bias for predictability and stability;they work on defending what they have.Change is tempered by the fear that there is much to lose.The organization at all levels filters out information that would suggest new approaches,modifications,or departures from the norm.The internal environment operates like an immune system to isolate or expel ‘‘hostile’’individ-uals who challenge current directions or established thinking.Innovation ceases;the company becomes stagnant;it is only a matter of time before aggressive competitors overtake it.The Diamond of National AdvantageWhy are certain companies based in certain na-tions capable of consistent innovation?Why do theyD ON O T C O P Y diamond—and the diamond as a system—affects es-to imitate—and they require sustained investment to create.sential ingredients for achieving international com-petitive success:the availability of resources and Nations succeed in industries where they are par-ticularly good at factor petitive advan-skills necessary for competitive advantage in an in-dustry;the information that shapes the opportuni-tage results from the presence of world-class institutions that first create specialized factors and ties that companies perceive and the directions in which they deploy their resources and skills;the then continually work to upgrade them.Denmark has two hospitals that concentrate in studying and goals of the owners,managers,and individuals in companies;and most important,the pressures on treating diabetes—and a world-leading export posi-tion in insulin.Holland has premier research insti-companies to invest and innovate.(See the insert ‘‘How the Diamond Works:The Italian Ceramic Tile tutes in the cultivation,packaging,and shipping of flowers,where it is the world’s export leader.Industry.’’)When a national environment permits and sup-What is not so obvious,however,is that selective disadvantages in the more basic factors can prod a ports the most rapid accumulation of specialized assets and skills—sometimes simply because of company to innovate and upgrade—a disadvantage in a static model of competition can become an ad-greater effort and commitment—companies gain a competitive advantage.When a national environ-vantage in a dynamic one.When there is an ample supply of cheap raw materials or abundant labor,ment affords better ongoing information and insight into product and process needs,companies gain a companies can simply rest on these advantages and often deploy them inefficiently.But when companies competitive advantage.Finally,when the national environment pressures companies to innovate and face a selective disadvantage,like high land costs,labor shortages,or the lack of local raw materials,invest,companies both gain a competitive advantage and upgrade those advantages over time.they must innovate and upgrade to compete.Implicit in the oft-repeated Japanese statement,Factor Conditions.According to standard eco-nomic theory,factors of production—labor,land,‘‘We are an island nation with no natural resources,’’is the understanding that these deficiencies have natural resources,capital,infrastructure—will deter-mine the flow of trade.A nation will export those only served to spur Japan’s competitive innovation.Just-in-time production,for example,economized on goods that make most use of the factors with which it is relatively well endowed.This doctrine,whose prohibitively expensive space.Italian steel producers in the Brescia area faced a similar set of disadvan-origins date back to Adam Smith and David Ricardo and that is embedded in classical economics,is at tages:high capital costs,high energy costs,and no local raw materials.Located in Northern Lombardy,best incomplete and at worst incorrect.In the sophisticated industries that form the back-these privately owned companies faced staggering logistics costs due to their distance from southern bone of any advanced economy,a nation does not inherit but instead creates the most important fac-ports and the inefficiencies of the state-owned Italian transportation system.The result:they pioneered tors of production—such as skilled human resources or a scientific base.Moreover,the stock of factors technologically advanced minimills that require only modest capital investment,use less energy,em-that a nation enjoys at a particular time is less im-portant than the rate and efficiency with which it ploy scrap metal as the feedstock,are efficient at small scale,and permit producers to locate close to creates,upgrades,and deploys them in particular in-dustries.sources of scrap and end-use customers.In other words,they converted factor disadvantages into com-The most important factors of production are those that involve sustained and heavy investment and are petitive advantage.Disadvantages can become advantages only under specialized.Basic factors,such as a pool of labor or a local raw-material source,do not constitute an ad-certain conditions.First,they must send companies proper signals about circumstances that will spread vantage in knowledge-intensive pa-nies can access them easily through a global strategy to other nations,thereby equipping them to innovate in advance of foreign rivals.Switzerland,the nation or circumvent them through technology.Contrary to conventional wisdom,simply having a general that experienced the first labor shortages after World War II,is a case in point.Swiss companies responded work force that is high school or even college educated represents no competitive advantage in to the disadvantage by upgrading labor productivity and seeking higher value,more sustainable market modern international competition.To support com-petitive advantage,a factor must be highly panies in most other parts of the world,where there were still ample workers,focused ized to an industry’s particular needs—a scientific institute specialized in optics,a pool of venture capi-their attention on other issues,which resulted in slower upgrading.tal to fund software companies.These factors are more scarce,more difficult for foreign competitorsThe second condition for transforming disadvan-D ON O T C O P Y tages into advantages is favorable circumstances More important than the mix of segments per se is the nature of domestic buyers.A nation’s companies elsewhere in the diamond—a consideration that ap-plies to almost all determinants.To innovate,com-gain competitive advantage if domestic buyers are the world’s most sophisticated and demanding buy-panies must have access to people with appropriate skills and have home-demand conditions that send ers for the product or service.Sophisticated,de-manding buyers provide a window into advanced the right signals.They must also have active domes-tic rivals who create pressure to innovate.Another customer needs;they pressure companies to meet high standards;they prod them to improve,to inno-precondition is company goals that lead to sustained commitment to the industry.Without such a com-vate,and to upgrade into more advanced segments.As with factor conditions,demand conditions pro-mitment and the presence of active rivalry,a com-pany may take an easy way around a disadvantage vide advantages by forcing companies to respond to tough challenges.rather than using it as a spur to innovation.For example,U.S.consumer-electronics compa-Especially stringent needs arise because of local values and circumstances.For example,Japanese nies,faced with high relative labor costs,chose to leave the product and production process largely un-consumers,who live in small,tightly packed homes,must contend with hot,humid summers and high-changed and move labor-intensive activities to Tai-wan and other Asian countries.Instead of upgrading cost electrical energy—a daunting combination of circumstances.In response,Japanese companies their sources of advantage,they settled for labor-cost parity.On the other hand,Japanese rivals,confronted have pioneered compact,quiet air-conditioning units powered by energy-saving rotary compressors.In in-with intense domestic competition and a mature home market,chose to eliminate labor through auto-dustry after industry,the tightly constrained require-ments of the Japanese market have forced companies mation.This led to lower assembly costs,to products with fewer components and to improved quality and to innovate,yielding products that are kei-haku-tan-sho—light,thin,short,small—and that are interna-reliability.Soon Japanese companies were building assembly plants in the United States—the place U.S.tionally accepted.Local buyers can help a nation’s companies gain companies had fled.Demand Conditions.It might seem that the advantage if their needs anticipate or even shape those of other nations—if their needs provide ongo-globalization of competition would diminish the im-portance of home demand.In practice,however,this ing ‘‘early-warning indicators’’of global market trends.Sometimes anticipatory needs emerge be-is simply not the case.In fact,the composition and character of the home market usually has a dispro-cause a nation’s political values foreshadow needs that will grow elsewhere.Sweden’s long-standing portionate effect on how companies perceive,inter-pret,and respond to buyer needs.Nations gain concern for handicapped people has spawned an in-creasingly competitive industry focused on special competitive advantage in industries where the home demand gives their companies a clearer or earlier needs.Denmark’s environmentalism has led to suc-cess for companies in water-pollution control equip-picture of emerging buyer needs,and where de-manding buyers pressure companies to innovate ment and windmills.More generally,a nation’s companies can antici-faster and achieve more sophisticated competitive advantages than their foreign rivals.The size of home pate global trends if the nation’s values are spread-ing—that is,if the country is exporting its values demand proves far less significant than the character of home demand.and tastes as well as its products.The international success of panies in fast food and credit Home-demand conditions help build competitive advantage when a particular industry segment is cards,for example,reflects not only the American desire for convenience but also the spread of these larger or more visible in the domestic market than in foreign markets.The larger market segments in a tastes to the rest of the world.Nations export their values and tastes through media,through training nation receive the most attention from the nation’s companies;companies accord smaller or less desir-foreigners,through political influence,and through the foreign activities of their citizens and companies.able segments a lower priority.A good example is hydraulic excavators,which represent the most Related and Supporting Industries.The third broad determinant of national advantage is the widely used type of construction equipment in the Japanese domestic market—but which comprise a far presence in the nation of related and supporting in-dustries that are internationally competitive.Inter-smaller proportion of the market in other advanced nations.This segment is one of the few where there nationally competitive home-based suppliers create advantages in downstream industries in several are vigorous Japanese international competitors and where Caterpillar does not hold a substantial share ways.First,they deliver the most cost-effective in-puts in an efficient,early,rapid,and sometimes pref-of the world market.D ON O T C O P Y erential way.Italian gold and silver jewelry keyboards grows out of success in acoustic instru-ments combined with a strong position in consumer companies lead the world in that industry in part because other Italian companies supply two-thirds electronics.Firm Strategy,Structure,and Rivalry.National of the world’s jewelry-making and precious-metal recycling machinery.circumstances and context create strong tendencies in how companies are created,organized,and man-Far more significant than mere access to compo-nents and machinery,however,is the advantage that aged,as well as what the nature of domestic rivalry will be.In Italy,for example,successful international home-based related and supporting industries pro-vide in innovation and upgrading—an advantage competitors are often small or medium-sized compa-nies that are privately owned and operated like ex-based on close working relationships.Suppliers and end-users located near each other can take advantage tended families;in Germany,in contrast,companies tend to be strictly hierarchical in organization and of short lines of communication,quick and constant flow of information,and an ongoing exchange of management practices,and top managers usually have technical backgrounds.ideas and panies have the opportu-nity to influence their suppliers’technical efforts and No one managerial system is universally ap-propriate—notwithstanding the current fascination can serve as test sites for R&D work,accelerating the pace of innovation.with Japanese petitiveness in a specific industry results from convergence of the The illustration of ‘‘The Italian Footwear Cluster’’offers a graphic example of how a group of close-by,management practices and organizational modes fa-vored in the country and the sources of competitive supporting industries creates competitive advantage in a range of interconnected industries that are all advantage in the industry.In industries where Italian companies are world leaders—such as lighting,furni-internationally competitive.Shoe producers,for in-stance,interact regularly with leather manufacturers ture,footwear,woolen fabrics,and packaging ma-chines—a company strategy that emphasizes focus,on new styles and manufacturing techniques and learn about new textures and colors of leather when customized products,niche marketing,rapid change,and breathtaking flexibility fits both the dynamics they are still on the drawing boards.Leather manu-facturers gain early insights into fashion trends,help-of the industry and the character of the Italian man-agement system.The German management system,ing them to plan new products.The interaction is mutually advantageous and self-reinforcing,but it in contrast,works well in technical or engineering-oriented industries—optics,chemicals,complicated does not happen automatically:it is helped by prox-imity,but occurs only because companies and suppli-machinery—where complex products demand preci-sion manufacturing,a careful development process,ers work at it.The nation’s companies benefit most when the after-sale service,and thus a highly disciplined man-agement structure.German success is much rarer in suppliers are,themselves,global competitors.It is ultimately self-defeating for a company or country consumer goods and services where image marketing and rapid new-feature and model turnover are im-to create ‘‘captive’’suppliers who are totally depen-dent on the domestic industry and prevented from portant to competition.Countries also differ markedly in the goals that serving foreign competitors.By the same token,a nation need not be competitive in all supplier indus-companies and individuals seek to -pany goals reflect the characteristics of national capi-tries for its companies to gain competitive panies can readily source from abroad materials,tal markets and the compensation practices for managers.For example,in Germany and Switzer-components,or technologies without a major effect on innovation or performance of the industry’s prod-land,where banks comprise a substantial part of the nation’s shareholders,most shares are held for long-ucts.The same is true of other generalized tech-nologies—like electronics or software—where the term appreciation and are rarely panies do well in mature industries,where ongoing invest-industry represents a narrow application area.Home-based competitiveness in related industries ment in R&D and new facilities is essential but re-turns may be only moderate.The United States is provides similar benefits:information flow and tech-nical interchange speed the rate of innovation and at the opposite extreme,with a large pool of risk capital but widespread trading of public companies upgrading.A home-based related industry also in-creases the likelihood that companies will embrace and a strong emphasis by investors on quarterly and annual share-price appreciation.Management com-new skills,and it also provides a source of entrants who will bring a novel approach to competing.The pensation is heavily based on annual bonuses tied to individual results.America does well in relatively Swiss success in pharmaceuticals emerged out of pre-vious international success in the dye industry,for new industries,like software and biotechnology,or ones where equity funding of new companies feedsexample;Japanese dominance in electronic musical。
《竞争优势》读后感
《竞争优势》读后感英文回答：Porter's theory of competitive advantage is based onthe idea that companies can gain a sustainable advantage over their competitors by focusing on one of three generic strategies: cost leadership, differentiation, or focus.Cost leadership is a strategy that involves producing goods or services at a lower cost than competitors. Thiscan be achieved by economies of scale, efficient operations, or access to cheaper inputs. By offering lower prices than competitors, a company can attract price-sensitive customers and gain market share.Differentiation is a strategy that involves creating products or services that are unique and valuable to customers. This can be achieved through innovation, design, or branding. By offering products or services that are perceived as superior to those of competitors, a companycan charge premium prices and attract customers who are willing to pay more for quality.Focus is a strategy that involves targeting a specific market niche. This can be based on geography, demographics, or customer needs. By focusing on a narrow market segment, a company can tailor its products or services to meet the specific needs of that segment and gain a competitive advantage over competitors who are trying to serve a broader market.Porter's theory of competitive advantage has been widely influential in the field of business strategy. It provides a framework for companies to analyze their competitive environment and develop strategies to gain a sustainable advantage. By understanding the three generic strategies and their implications, companies can make informed decisions about how to compete and succeed in the marketplace.中文回答：《竞争优势》读后感。
《竞争优势》读后感
《竞争优势》读后感英文回答：Michael Porter's seminal work, "Competitive Advantage," has been an invaluable resource to me both personally and professionally. Originally published in 1985, this book has had a profound impact on the way businesses think about strategy and competition.Porter's theory of competitive advantage is based on the idea that companies can achieve sustained success by creating and maintaining a competitive advantage over their rivals. This advantage can be achieved through a variety of means, including:Cost leadership: This strategy involves producing products or services at a lower cost than competitors.Differentiation: This strategy involves creating products or services that are unique and desirable tocustomers.Focus: This strategy involves targeting a specific niche market and becoming the leader in that market.Notably, Porter emphasizes the importance of industry structure in determining a company's competitive advantage. He argues that industries with high barriers to entry, low supplier power, and low buyer power are more likely to be profitable.In addition to these key concepts, Porter alsodiscusses the importance of value chains, core competencies, and strategic positioning. He argues that companies can create competitive advantage by focusing on activities that create value for customers and by developing core competencies that are difficult for competitors to imitate.中文回答：迈克尔·波特的开创性著作《竞争优势》对我个人和职业生涯都产生了宝贵的指导意义。
《竞争优势》读后感
《竞争优势》读后感英文回答：The book "Competitive Advantage" by Michael Porter is a comprehensive guide to creating and sustaining a successful business. Porter argues that businesses should focus on developing a sustainable competitive advantage over their rivals. He explains that a competitive advantage can be achieved by creating a unique value proposition for customers, and by building and defending this value proposition over time.Porter identifies two main types of competitive advantage: cost advantage and differentiation advantage. A cost advantage occurs when a business can produce and distribute its products or services at a lower cost thanits competitors. A differentiation advantage occurs when a business can offer products or services that are unique and valuable to customers.Porter argues that businesses should focus on developing one type of competitive advantage, and that they should not try to be both a cost leader and a differentiator. He believes that businesses that try to do both often end up with neither.Porter also discusses the importance of industry analysis in developing a competitive advantage. He argues that businesses should understand the industry in which they operate, and that they should identify the key factors that drive success in that industry.Finally, Porter emphasizes the importance of innovation in competitive advantage. He argues that businesses must constantly innovate in order to stay ahead of the competition.中文回答：《竞争优势》这本书是迈克尔·波特撰写的一本全面指南，旨在帮助企业创造和维持成功。
《竞争优势》读后感
《竞争优势》读后感英文回答：Porter's "Competitive Advantage" is a seminal work that provides a comprehensive framework for understanding the competitive dynamics of industries. It offers valuable insights into the factors that drive profitability and sustained success in the marketplace.Porter's five forces model, which includes industry competition, bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of buyers, threat of new entrants, and threat of substitutes, provides a holistic view of the industry environment. By considering these forces, businesses can assess their competitive positions and identify potential threats and opportunities.The concept of value chains is another key element of Porter's framework. It emphasizes the importance of identifying the activities that create value for customersand aligning them with the overall business strategy. By optimizing each activity within the value chain, businesses can improve efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance customer satisfaction.Porter also discusses the importance of differentiation and focus as competitive strategies. Differentiation involves creating unique products or services that stand out from the competition, while focus entails specializing in a particular market segment or product line. These strategies allow businesses to establish a competitive advantage by targeting specific customer needs and avoiding direct competition with larger or more diversified rivals.中文回答：读了波特的《竞争优势》一书，我深受启发。
汇聚资讯《汇聚证券内参》1汇201。。。
Consistency Between Strategy and National Conditions
In globally-competitive industries, firm strategy needs to take account of national conditions:
– U.S. textile manufacturers must compete on the basis of advanced process technologies and focus on high quality, less price-sensitive market segments
– Dispersion of value chain to exploit different national environments (e.g. Nike conducts R&D in US, components in Korea and Thailand, assembly in Indonesia, China, and India, marketing in Europe and North America)
– In the semiconduictor industry, CA-based firms concentrate mainly upon design of advanced chips, Malaysian firms concentrate upon fabrication of high volume, less technologically advanced items (e.g. DRAM chips)
USA Canada .31 .28 .43 .51 -.64 .34 .42 -.16 .12 -.19
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
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Porter's 'Competitive Advantage of Nations': An Assessment
Grant, Robert M. Strategic Management Journal; Oct 1991; 12, 7; ABI/INFORM Global pg. 535
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