Competitive Advantage

In his book "The Competitive Advantage of Nations," Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter argues that a nation's competitiveness is determined by how productively it uses its human, capital and natural resources. A review of many of Dubai's business plans over the past two decades reveals how prominently Porter's work has figured into the Dubai growth model. The most direct linkage between Porter and Dubai appears to be the notion of clustering, whereby complementary industries operate in close proximity to one another, fostering higher productivity and attracting other similar businesses to settle. The Dubai "free zone" strategy is the local example of clustering, with Dubai's inherent natural resource advantage being exploited to enable these tax-free environments.

Porter's views on the relationship between government and the private sector, however, may not be reflected quite so vividly in Dubai. While Porter's writing tends to favor a "collaborative" relationship between government and the nation's institutions representing its human, capital and natural resources, the Dubai model tends to place government at the helm of these institutions. Click here for a custom report by Porter about the United Arab Emirates.