Michael Eugene Porter (born May 23, 1947)[2] is an American businessman and professor atHarvard Business School. He was one of the founders of the consulting firmThe Monitor Group (now part ofDeloitte) and FSG, a social impact consultancy. He is credited with creatingPorter's five forces analysis, a foundational framework in strategic management that remains widely used in both academia and industry. He is generally regarded as the father of the modern strategy field.[3] He is also regarded as one of the world's most influential thinkers on management and competitiveness as well as one of the most influential business strategists.[4][5] His work has been recognized by governments,non-governmental organizations and universities.[6]
Michael Porter's father was a civil engineer and Georgia Tech graduate who had also gone on to a career as an army officer. During Porter's childhood, his family moved around the United States, and to France and Canada. This contributed to Porter's interest in understanding the economic development of regions and countries, and the differences in economic outcomes and competitiveness across different regions.[citation needed]
Porter said in an interview that he first became interested in competition through sports. He was on the NCAA championship golf squad at Princeton and also played football, baseball and basketball growing up.[7]
Porter received a BSE with high honors in aerospace andmechanical engineering fromPrinceton University in 1969, where he graduated first in his class and was elected toPhi Beta Kappa andTau Beta Pi. He received an MBA with high distinction in 1971 fromHarvard Business School (HBS), where he was a George F. Baker Scholar, and a PhD in business economics fromHarvard University in 1973. Porter credits Harvard professor Roland "Chris" Christensen with inspiring him and encouraging him to speak up during class. Porter reached the top of his class by his second year at HBS.[7]
During his career, Porter has emphasized that the essence of strategy is about making choices.[8][9] He has delivered public speaking based on the importance of strategy formulation and has served as a consultant to many governments and NGOs devising strategy formulations.[10]
Porter is the author of 20 books and numerous articles includingCompetitive Strategy,Competitive Advantage,Competitive Advantage of Nations, andOn Competition, and is the most cited author in business and economics.[11]
Porter wroteThe Competitive Advantage of Nations in 1990. The book is based on studies of ten nations and argues that a key to national wealth and advantage was the productivity of firms and workers collectively, and that the national and regional environment supports that productivity.[12] He proposed the "diamond" framework, a mutually-reinforcing system of four factors that determine national advantage: factor conditions; demand conditions; related or supporting industries; and firm strategy, structure and rivalry. Information, incentives, and infrastructure were also key to that productivity.[13]
During April 2014, Porter discussed how the US ranks relative to other countries on a comprehensive scorecard called "The Social Progress Index", an effort which he co-authored.[14] This scorecard rated the US on a comprehensive set of metrics; overall, the US placed 16th.[15]
Michael Porter defined the two ways in which an organization can achieve competitive advantage over its rivals: cost advantage anddifferentiation advantage. Cost advantage is when a business provides the same products and services as its competitors, albeit at a lesser cost. Differentiation advantage is when a business provides better products and services as its competitors. In Porter's view, strategic management should be concerned with building and sustaining competitive advantage.[16] He originally developed the Porter's Five Forces in 1979 which is still widely used as a model to analyse the industry and to estimate whether it would be profitable and ideal enough to enter the industry after carefully examining the bargaining power of buyers, bargaining power of suppliers, threat of new entrants, competition among existing firms and threat of substitutes.[17] He first wrote and published about Porter's Five Forces in a 1979 articleHow Competitive Forces Shape Strategy and has further explained about the Five Forces in his 1980 articleCompetitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors.[18]
Porter introduced the concept ofcompetitive advantage in 1985. which later went onto become one of the key concepts in management science at present.[19] He also published a book titledCompetitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance in order to explain the concept of competitive advantage and the book which later went onto become abestseller also focuses onvalue chain concept.[20]
Porter introduced the concept ofvalue chain analysis in his 1985 book,Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance. The value chain comprises each of the activities, from design through distribution, that a company performs to produce a product; these activities are viewed as the “basic units of competitive advantage".[21][22]
Porter has focused on addressing pressing problems inhealth care delivery in the US and other countries. His book,Redefining Health Care (written with Elizabeth Teisberg), develops a new strategic framework for transforming the value delivered by the health care system, with implications for providers, health plans, employers, and government, among other actors.[citation needed] The book received the James A. Hamilton award of the American College of Healthcare Executives in 2007 for book of the year. HisNew England Journal of Medicine perspective article, "A Strategy for Health Care Reform – Toward a Value-Based System" (July 2009), lays out a health reform strategy for the US.[23] His work on health care is employed to address the health care delivery problems in developing countries, in collaboration withDr. Jim Yong Kim, Dr. Kevin J. Bozic, and others at theHarvard Medical School andHarvard School of Public Health.[citation needed]
Initiative for a Competitive Inner City – ICIC, founded in 1994,[26] and which he still chairs,[27] which addresses economic development in distressed urban communities;
the Center for Effective Philanthropy, which creates rigorous tools for measuring foundation effectiveness;
FSG Social Impact Advisors, a leading non-profit strategy firm which he co-founded with Mark Kramer,[28] serving NGOs, corporations, and foundations in the area of creating social value; and
the International Consortium for Health Outcomes Measurements (ICHOM), which he co-founded in 2012 with Stefan Larsson and Martin Ingvar. ICHOM supports the key strategic agenda items in Porter's Value-Based Health Care Delivery framework by working with patients and leading healthcare providers to create a global standard for measuring health outcomes.[29]
An analysis by Porter in collaboration withKatherine Gehl frames the US two-party system as aduopoly, a business best described as a "political industry", that competes in ways that serve the parties' interests rather than the public good. Gehl and Porter published a Harvard Business School report on the topic, "Why Competition in the Politics Industry is Failing America" (2017),[30] and later a book,The Politics Industry: How Political Innovation Can Break Partisan Gridlock and Save Our Democracy (2020).
Porter's work has received criticism from peers within academia for inconsistent logical argument in his assertions.[32] Porter's conclusions have been critiqued as "lacking in empirical support" and as "justified with selective case studies". These critiques assert that Porter fails to credit original creators of his postulates originating from pure microeconomic theory.[11][33][34][35]
He has written numerous books on modern competitive strategy for business.[36] His concepts and theories with regards to strategic management, such as Porter's Five Forces,Porter's Diamond model, Porter's Generic Strategies and Porter's Value Chain, are widely taught in universities.[citation needed]
Porter stated in a 2010 interview: "What I've come to see as probably my greatest gift is the ability to take an extraordinarily complex, integrated, multidimensional problem and get arms around it conceptually in a way that helps, that informs and empowers practitioners to actually do things."[7]
Porter, M.E. (1980)Competitive Strategy, Free Press, New York, 1980. The book was voted the ninth most influential management book of the 20th century in a poll of the Fellows of theAcademy of Management.[37]
Porter, M.E. (2001) "Strategy and the Internet",Harvard Business Review, March 2001, pp. 62–78.
Porter, M.E. & Kramer, M.R. (2006) "Strategy and Society: The Link Between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility",Harvard Business Review, December 2006, pp. 78–92.
Porter, M.E. (2008) "The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy",Harvard Business Review, January 2008, pp. 79–93.
Porter, M.E. & Kramer, M.R. (2011) "Creating Shared Value",Harvard Business Review, Jan/Feb 2011, Vol. 89 Issue 1/2, pp. 62–77
Porter, M.E. & Teisberg, E.O. (2006)Redefining Health Care: Creating Value-Based Competition On Results, Harvard Business School Press, 2006.[ISBN missing]
Jain SH, Weintraub R, Rhatigan J, Porter ME, Kim JY. "Delivering Global Health".Student British Medical Journal 2008; 16:27.
Kim JY, Rhatigan J, Jain SH, Weintraub R, Porter ME. "From a declaration of values to the creation of value in global health: a report from Harvard University's Global Health Delivery Project".Global Public Health. 2010 Mar; 5(2):181–88.
Rhatigan, Joseph, Sachin H Jain, Joia S. Mukherjee, and Michael E. Porter. "Applying the Care Delivery Value Chain: HIV/AIDS Care in Resource Poor Settings."Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 09-093, February 2009.
Understanding Michael Porter: The Essential Guide to Competition and Strategy. Magretta, Joan. Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2012.[38]
The Lords of Strategy: The Secret Intellectual History of the New Corporate World. Kiechel, Walter III. Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, 2010.[39]
The Porter Hypothesis After 20 Years: How Can Environmental Regulation Enhance Innovation and Competitiveness? Stefan Ambec, Mark A. Cohen, Stewart Elgie, and Paul Lanoie. Resources for the Future Discussion Paper, Washington DC, 2011.
Well-Designed Environmental Regulations will Strengthen Companies' Competitiveness: Reviewing the Porter Hypothesis. Mitsuhashi Tadahiro (ed.) Japan, 2008.
From Adam Smith to Michael Porter: Evolution of Competitiveness Theory. Cho, Dong-Sung Cho and Hwy-Chang Moon. Asia-Pacific Business Series, Korea, 2000.[40]
“Retrospective: Michael Porter's Competitive Strategy.”Academy of Management Executive, May 2002, Vol. 16, No. 2
Perspectives on Strategy: Contributions of Michael E. Porter, F.A.J. van den Bosch and A.P. de Man (eds.), Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, 1997.[ISBN missing]
O Projecto Porter: A aplicação a Portugal 1993/94. Lisbon, Portugal: Ministério da Indústria e Energia, May 1995.[ISBN missing]
Sölvell, Ö. (2015), "The Competitive Advantage of Nations 25 years – opening up new perspectives on competitiveness".Competitiveness Review, Vol. 25 No. 5, pp. 471–481.https://doi.org/10.1108/CR-07-2015-0068.
The Politics Industry: How Political Innovation Can Break Partisan Gridlock and Save Our Democracy, Katherine M. Gehl, Michael E. Porter, Harvard Business Review Press, 2020,
^Compare:Prasad, Sakthi (November 8, 2012)."Monitor Company files for Chapter 11; Deloitte to buy assets". Market news.Reuters. Reuters. RetrievedJune 17, 2018.U.S. consulting and advisory firm Monitor Company Group and its affiliates filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, court documents showed, and said it has agreed to sell its assets to global consultancy firm Deloitte.
^Colvin, Geoff (October 29, 2012). "There's No Quit in Michael Porter".Fortune.166 (7):162–166.
^Sharp, Byron; Dawes, John (1996), "Is Differentiation Optional? A Critique of Porter's Generic Strategy Typology," inManagement, Marketing and the Competitive Process, Peter Earl, Ed. London: Edward Elgar.[ISBN missing]
^Speed, Richard J. (1989), "Oh Mr Porter! A Re-Appraisal of Competitive Strategy,"Marketing Intelligence and Planning, 7 (5/6), 8–11.
^Yetton, Philip, Jane Craig, Jeremy Davis, and Fred Hilmer (1992), "Are Diamonds a Country's Best Friend? A Critique of Porter's Theory of National Competition as Applied to Canada, New Zealand and Australia,"Australian Journal of Management, 17 (No. 1, June), 89–120.
^Allio, Robert J. (1990), "Flaws in Porter's Competitive Diamond?,"Planning Review, 18 (No. 5, September/October), 28–32.
^Magretta, Joan (2011).Understanding Michael Porter: The Essential Guide to Competition and Strategy. Harvard Business Review Press.ISBN978-1422160596.
^Kiechel, Walter (2010).The Lords of Strategy: The Secret Intellectual History of the New Corporate World. Harvard Business Review Press.ISBN978-1591397823.
^Cho, Dong-Sung (2013).From Adam Smith to Michael Porter: Evolution of Competitiveness Theory. World Scientific Publishing Company.ISBN978-9814407540.
