Now beyond its eleventh printing and translated into twelve languages, Michael Porter’s The Competitive Advantage of Nations has changed completely our conception of how prosperity is created and sustained in the modern global economy. Porter’s groundbreaking study of international competitiveness has shaped national policy in countries around the world. It has also transformed thinking and action in states, cities, companies, and even entire regions such as Central America. Based on research in ten leading trading nations, The Competitive Advantage of Nations offers the first theory of competitiveness based on the causes of the productivity with which companies compete. Porter shows how traditional comparative advantages such as natural resources and pools of labor have been superseded as sources of prosperity, and how broad macroeconomic accounts of competitiveness are insufficient. The book introduces Porter’s “diamond,” a whole new way to understand the competitive position of a nation (or other locations) in global competition that is now an integral part of international business thinking. Porter's concept of “clusters,” or groups of interconnected firms, suppliers, related industries, and institutions that arise in particular locations, has become a new way for companies and governments to think about economies, assess the competitive advantage of locations, and set public policy. Even before publication of the book, Porter’s theory had guided national reassessments in New Zealand and elsewhere. His ideas and personal involvement have shaped strategy in countries as diverse as the Netherlands, Portugal, Taiwan, Costa Rica, and India, and regions such as Massachusetts, California, and the Basque country. Hundreds of cluster initiatives have flourished throughout the world. In an era of intensifying global competition, this pathbreaking book on the new wealth of nations has become the standard by which all future work must be measured.

Are you at risk of being trapped in an uncompetitive business? Chances are the strategies that worked well for you even a few years ago no longer deliver the results you need. Dramatic changes in business have unearthed a major gap between traditional approaches to strategy and the way the real world works now. In short, strategy is stuck. Most leaders are using frameworks that were designed for a different era of business and based on a single dominant idea—that the purpose of strategy is to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. Once the premise on which all strategies were built, this idea is increasingly irrelevant. Now, Columbia Business School professor and globally recognized strategy expert Rita Gunther McGrath argues that it’s time to go beyond the very concept of sustainable competitive advantage. Instead, organizations need to forge a new path to winning: capturing opportunities fast, exploiting them decisively, and moving on even before they are exhausted. She shows how to do this with a new set of practices based on the notion of transient competitive advantage. This book serves as a new playbook for strategy, one based on updated assumptions about how the world works, and shows how some of the world’s most successful companies use this method to compete and win today. Filled with compelling examples from “growth outlier” firms such as Fujifilm, Cognizant Technology Solutions, Infosys, Yahoo! Japan, and Atmos Energy, The End of Competitive Advantage is your guide to renewed success and profitable growth in an economy increasingly defined by transient advantage.

Case study research conducted in 1981 in nine US companies and seven Japanese companies.

Recommends a manufacturing strategy that develops production facilities, uses appropriate management systems, and establishes firm relationships with suppliers.

Market_Desc: Management; Graduate students of operation management Special Features: · AUTHOR RECOGNITION: Dr. Robert Hayes, Emeritus, Harvard Business School, is the most recognizable academic authority in the field of Operations Management. He is the author and co-author of numerous trade and college books. His Wiley book, Restoring Our Competitive Edge: Competing Through Manufacturing has sold 60,000 copies, and is now in its 15th printing. It was chosen by The American Association of Publishers in 1984 as the best business book on business, management and economics. His article with William Abernathy, Managing Our Way Toward an Economic Decline is generally regarded as the most widely read reprint article in the history of Harvard Business Review.· PREVIOUS TRACK RECORD: Robert Hayes has co-authored two successful hybrid trade/college books. In 1984, he authored Restoring Our Competitive Edge: Competing Through Manufacturing (60,000 sold, of which approximately 20,000 were sold to the college market). In 1990 he was the lead author of Dynamic Manufacturing, for Free Press, (55,000 sold)· AUTHOR PROMOTION: Dr. Hayes maintains an excellent relationship with top executives at Hewlett-Packard, Canton Timken and other Fortune 500 companies, and he will send them complimentary copies to stimulate bulk purchases. Also, the authors will promote the book both to the Production Management Society and The Decision Science Institute. In addition, Dr. Upton will use the text in his executive education courses at Harvard Business School.· COLLEGE MARKET: This book will be strongly considered as the course book for the graduate level operations management course at the top-flight colleges and universities. About The Book: Hayes is a founder of the Operations Strategy field, and all four authors are on the Harvard Business School faculty. In Operations, Strategy, and Technology: Pursuing the Competitive Edge--the long-awaited follow-up to the highly successful classic, Restoring Our Competitive Edge--Bob Hayes, Gary Pisano, Dave Upton, and Steve Wheelwright take a fresh look at the foundations of corporate success. This book addresses the basic principles that guide the development of a powerful operations organization, and describes how a company's operating and technological resources can be applied to create a sustainable competitive advantage in today's new (global and IT-intensive) economy. Achieving a competitive advantage through superior operations is what the authors refer to as the operations edge.

Right now, vast amounts of time and money are being invested all round the world in building global brands and organisations. But where are the global leaders who will lead them? Leaders who can cross cultural boundaries: between east and west, and north and south; between faiths and beliefs; between public, private and voluntary sectors; and between the generations? Where are the leaders who can lead in what Julia calls the “magnet cities” of the world: where the world's most talented young people will convene? Because these people will simply turn their backs on bosses who demand that their teams think and behave alike. The race is on to develop leaders with CQ. And this book is designed to give readers a decisive head start. In the process, Julia has spoken to leaders all round the world, and invited them to tell their own CQ stories: successful and disastrous, serious and funny, poignant, pragmatic and often highly personal. The result is surprising, challenging and frequently uncomfortable (there is no simplistic advice here about how to exchange business cards in the correct local manner). But the ambition is huge. As is the prize for the next generation of leaders who see the opportunity she outlines - and grasp it.

The international bestseller—don't compete without it! A major bestseller in Japan, Financial Times Top Ten book of the year, Book-of-the-Month Club bestseller, and required reading at the best business schools, Thinking Strategically is a crash course in outmaneuvering any rival. This entertaining guide builds on scores of case studies taken from business, sports, the movies, politics, and gambling. It outlines the basics of good strategy making and then shows how you can apply them in any area of your life.