Competitive Advantage


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Hardcover
592 pages
ISBN 9780684841465 Published June 1998
Free Press
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Competitive Advantage
Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance
By Michael E Porter, Micheal Porter 

Related Blog Posts
Business Book Humiliations
Posted Aug. 3, 2010 3:43 a.m. by sally-haldorson
In - 800 CEO Read Blog

Penguin's Portfolio imprint specializes in business books, and their Portfolio Javelin blog ("Business, Business Books, and the Business of Books") is a great read for any of us business book geeks. Yesterday, Will Weisser, Vice President and Associate Editor of Portfolio, wrote an entry inspired by a post in the Guardian's blog in which the author, Robert McCrum, confessed, despite his education and exposure to great books, that he had never read Middlemarch by George Eliot (if you too have not read Middlemarch, I highly recommend remedying that this summer--it's one of my favorites.) McCrum then invites readers to share their book humiliations by listing the books that they regret never having read.

In his post, Weisser agrees to play along, but specifies that he has "focused on the business category for 15 years but still haven’t read some of the most acclaimed and influential business books, the ones we use as benchmarks and role models."

Weisser's list of regrets:

Barbarians at the Gate by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar

Den of Thieves by James B. Stewart

In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters and Bob Waterman

The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clay Christensen

Only the Paranoid Survive by Andy Grove

Why We Buy by Paco Underhill

The HP Way by David Packard

Then he was kind enough to mention our book, The 100 Best Business Books of All Time, as a great resource for determining which books you've missed out on. (When preparing the "lost chapter" of The 100 Best, we added Barbarians at the Gate by Burrough and Helyar, and it would be the perfect book to take on vacation yet this summer.)

Intrigued by this challenge, I posed the question to Jack, our in-house encyclopedia of business books, what Business Book Humiliations he may still have. He replied that Michael Porter (author of Competitive Advantage and Competitive Strategy comes to mind. Personal History by Katharine Graham was Dylan's choice. If I had to choose one, it would be Men and Women of the Corporation by Rosabeth Moss Kanter.

What's your business book humiliation, the one business book you most regret never having read?



Feeling Down?
Posted Dec. 17, 2008 10:48 a.m. by dylan
In Uncategorized - 800 CEO Read Blog

Let Charlie Rose and Competitive Advantage author Michael Porter cheer you up some. As Charlie notes at the beginning of the interview, The Times of London has called Porter the "Most important business thinker in the world." Also mentioned in the interview is his feature article for BusinessWeek last month, Why America Needs an Economic Strategy. (Video runs 25 minutes.)



The Best Books OF ALL TIME! - The Independent Edition
Posted Dec. 16, 2008 3:52 a.m. by dylan
In Uncategorized - 800 CEO Read Blog

Jack and Todd will soon have the definitive list of the best business books of all time published, but, in the meantime, here is what The Independent's Sean O'Grady has to say on the matter. He chooses from both "timeless classics [and] the latest crop of credit crunch chronicles." It's an interesting list because it's from a newspaper that leans to the left side of the British political spectrum, providing a perspective from the side of the aisle that doesn't speak up on business books as often.

The choices from all time include:

  • The Great Crash by J.K Galbraith, Mariner Books

  • Capitalism Unleashed: Finance, Globalization, and Welfare by Andrew Glyn, Oxford University Press

  • What Management Is: How It Works and Why It's Everyone's Business by Joan Magretta with Nan Stone, Free Press

  • Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance by Michael E Porter, Free Press

  • When Markets Collide: Investment Strategies for the Age of Global Economic Change by Mohamed El-Erian, McGraw-Hill

  • Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefevre, John Wiley & Sons

  • Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street by Michael Lewis, Penguin Books

  • Hotel Babylon by Anonymous & Imogen Edwards-Jones, Blue Hen Books

  • The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Random House

  • End of the Road: The True Story of the Downfall of Rover by Chris Brady & Andrew Lorenz, FT Press

    • The choices dealing specifically with the current crisis are:

  • The Crunch: Uncovering the Truth Behind the Great Credit Scandal by Alex Brummer, Random House Business Books

  • The Gods That Failed: How Blind Faith in Markets Has Cost Us Our Future by Larry Elliott & Dan Atkinson, Nation Books (being released in the States next month)

  • The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means by George Soros, PublicAffairs

  • The Subprime Solution: How Today's Global Financial Crisis Happened, and What to Do about It by Robert Shiller, Princeton University Press

  • The Credit Crunch: Housing Bubbles, Globalisation and the Worldwide Economic Crisis by Graham Turner, Pluto Press
  • The Trillion Dollar Meltdown: Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Credit Crash by Charles R Morris, PublicAffairs

  • The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World, by Alan Greenspan, Penguin Books

  • Who Runs Britain? and Who's to Blame for the Economic Mess We're In by Robert Peston (Not available in the States)

  • The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World by Niall Ferguson, Penguin Press

    • To read the explanation behind the choices and descriptions of the books, head over to The Independent for the original article.



    Forbes' 20 Most Influential Business Books
    Posted April 21, 2006 3:52 a.m. by todd-sattersten
    In Lists - 800 CEO Read Blog

    In the Forbes' article that Tom referred to yesterday, the writer Dan Ackman pointed to a list of business books the magazine put together in 2002. Forbes calls these The 20 Most Influential Business Books. As you look down the panel experts, you'll notice our own Jack Covert was among those called to contribute. Since this was put together before the blog was born, I thought we should get it put up here.

    They also organized the books and you will find some good commentary under the topics of management, narrative, biography and investing.



    Biz Books from B-Schools - Part II
    Posted April 29, 2004 10:18 a.m. by todd-sattersten
    In Lists - 800 CEO Read Blog

    When I told Jack about the series, he proudly pointed me to the same exercise BusinessWeek did in 2000. The panel then was a combination of practioners and professors. Along with Mr. Covert, they talked to Jim Collins, Jeff Bezos, Durk Jager, and Bob Pittman to name a few.

    Here were/are Jack's recommendations:

    More on this book