Contenuti dell'insegnamento
This course in the first place explores the determinants of national and regional competitiveness from a bottom-up, microeconomic perspective. The course probes the ultimate determinants of a nation’s or region’s productivity, rooted in the strategies and operating practices of locally-based firms, the vitality of clusters, and the quality of the business environment in which competition takes place.
Both advanced and developing economies will be considered and the competitiveness of nations, subnational units such as states or provinces, and particular clusters will be addressed. The course also examines the role that economic coordination among neighbouring countries or regions can play in competitiveness.
The course is concerned not only with government policy but also with the roles that firms, industry associations, universities, and other institutions play in competitiveness. The process of creating and sustaining an economic strategy for a nation or region being a daunting challenge the course explores not only theory and policy, but also the organizational structures, institutional structures, and change processes required for sustained improvements in competitiveness.
Having understood the multidimensional character of the microeconomics of building competitiveness the course will proceed to take a critical look at strategic decision-making in business challenging in particular some of the narrower models of strategy based exclusively on shareholder wealth maximisation; instead a broader approach to firm strategy based on considerations of sustainability and ethical business and respecting the interests of all stakeholders will be introduced.
From there the discussion will widen out to the macro level to encompass the meaning of social progress and its measurement through such indices as the Social Progress Index.
The main topics covered will therefore be as follows:
Theoretical foundations of economic growth theory
Microeconomics of development; the value chain; the power of clusters
Harvard cases on Competitiveness and Clusters: Dutch flower case; Indonesia case; Ireland case; European Union case and others as relevant
Creating Shared Value and its implications for business strategy; Corporate Citizenship
Macro indices to measure creation of shared value: the Social Progress Index
