Part 2 - Gary Hamel – core competencies and the competition for the future
From products to expertise
What exactly is a business?
It may seem like a simple question. An automobile manufacturer makes cars. A bank provides financial services. A store sells goods. A technology company develops products and services based on technology.
Gary Hamel and CK Prahalad challenged this way of looking at business.
Behind the products, services and business areas are knowledge, skills, technology, experience and organizational capabilities that the business has developed over time.
This is what can enable the business to create something more than the products it already sells.
In the influential 1990 Harvard Business Review article The Core Competence of the Corporation, Hamel and Prahalad introduced the concept of core competence .
It was to have great significance for modern strategic thinking.
What are core competencies?
Core competence is not the same as the business being good at something.
It is also not just the sum of the competence of the employees.
Hamel and Prahalad described core competencies as the organization's collective learning , particularly the ability to coordinate different skills and integrate different forms of technology and knowledge.
This means that core competencies arise through combinations.
A business may have skilled engineers, strong customer relationships, technological knowledge, manufacturing expertise, and market insight.
Strategic strength arises when these resources are linked together in ways that enable the business to create value that competitors find difficult to copy.
Core competence is therefore not just something the business has .
It is something the organization has learned to do together over time .
Three characteristics of core competencies
Hamel and Prahalad described three key characteristics that can be used to assess whether a competency is truly a core competency.
Firstly, it should be able to give the business access to more markets .
A competency that can only be used for one specific product has limited strategic reach. A core competency, on the other hand, can form the basis for multiple products, services or business opportunities.
Secondly, it should contribute significantly to the value experienced by the customer .
Competence is not strategically important just because the business itself considers it advanced. It must contribute to features or solutions that actually matter to the customer.
Third, the expertise should be difficult for competitors to imitate .
It is particularly interesting because complex combinations of experience, people, technology, collaboration and organizational learning are often far more difficult to replicate than a single product.
A product can be disassembled and analyzed.
Replicating decades of learning, relationships, experience, and interaction is far more difficult.
The business as a tree
Hamel and Prahalad used an illustration that made their thinking particularly clear.
They compared the diversified business to a tree .
The trunk and large branches represent the core products. The smaller branches represent the business areas. The leaves, flowers and fruits are the products that customers encounter in the market.
But it is underground that the most interesting part is located.
The roots are the core competence.
It is the roots that provide nourishment and make the rest of the tree possible.
If management only assesses the business based on the visible products and business areas, it risks overlooking the resources that make future growth possible.
The metaphor also has an important consequence:
You can harm the future of your business by cutting out expertise that seems less important when you only look at today's products.
The people behind the core competence
Here the connection to human capital becomes particularly clear.
Competence does not exist independently of people.
Technology can be owned. Patents can be registered. Machines can be purchased. Capital can be moved.
But much organizational competence is developed through people working together over time.
They are learning.
They solve problems.
They share experiences.
They build relationships.
They discover connections.
And gradually the organization develops capabilities that cannot necessarily be traced back to a single employee.
There is therefore a difference between individual competence and organizational competence .
When knowledge is shared, combined and embedded in the organization's working methods, it can become a resource greater than the sum of individual knowledge.
Here Hamel's and Prahalad's strategic thinking meets the very core of invisible capital .
Some of the business's most important capital is not necessarily on the balance sheet.
Competence can also disappear
This perspective also carries a warning. If management does not understand where the company's most important expertise lies, it can be destroyed. Reorganizations, outsourcing, downsizing and splitting up the company can be economically rational decisions. However, if the decisions are only assessed through short-term costs, the company can also lose knowledge, relationships and organizational capabilities that have taken many years to develop.
When people disappear, it's not just the number of man-years that disappear.
Competence can disappear with them. So can networks, experience, tacit knowledge and understanding of how different parts of the organization actually work together. Thus, strategic competence management also becomes a question of understanding what the business cannot afford to lose .
From today's products to tomorrow's markets
In Competing for the Future from 1994, Hamel and Prahalad further developed this perspective.
They believed businesses spent too much energy competing for today's markets and too little on building positions in tomorrow's.
That doesn't mean that today's business is unimportant.
Revenue must be generated. Customers must be served. Costs must be managed.
Products and services need to be improved.
But at the same time, the business must ask another question:
What do we need to start building now to be relevant later?
It's about competence before the market is fully developed.
About technology before application is obvious.
About customer insights before needs have turned into established product categories.
And about organizational abilities before competitors understand that they are necessary.
Creating the future
Here lies one of Hamel's most characteristic ideas.
The future is not just something that happens to business .
Businesses can help shape it.
New markets emerge when someone combines technology, expertise and understanding of human needs in new ways. New business models emerge when someone challenges established notions of how value should be created and delivered.
This means that strategy is not just about predicting the future.
No one can know exactly what the future will be like.
Rather, the task is to develop a business that has the expertise, curiosity, and drive to discover and create opportunities as the future unfolds .
From core competence to innovation
Thus, the connection between core competence and innovation becomes clear.
Innovation rarely arises from nothing.
New solutions often build on existing knowledge that is combined in new ways.
A business that understands its own core competencies can therefore ask a far more interesting question than:
How can we sell more of what we already make?
It can ask:
What else can we create with what we already know – and what do we need to learn to be able to create something we can't yet?
It's a completely different strategic perspective.
Core competencies in a digital and AI-driven world
More than three decades after Competing for the Future , technology has dramatically changed the possibilities for businesses.
Digitalization, data, cloud technology and artificial intelligence make it possible to develop products and services faster, automate tasks and combine knowledge in new ways.
But this does not make competence any less important.
That may make it even more important .
AI can make technology available to a large number of businesses at the same time. If competitors have access to the same models, platforms and digital tools, lasting competitive advantage does not necessarily lie in technology alone.
The difference may lie in how the business uses it.
What problems does it understand?
What data and experience does it have?
How does it combine professional expertise and technology?
How quickly does the organization learn?
And are employees able to convert new opportunities into value for customers and the business?
That brings us back to Hamel and Prahalad:
Competitive advantage can lie in the organization's collective ability to learn, combine expertise and create something that others cannot easily copy.
But competence is not enough
Here the next problem arises.
A business can be full of competent people and yet be poor at innovating. It can have knowledge, capital and technology – but at the same time have structures that make it difficult to challenge established decisions.
It may talk about innovation, but reward predictability.
It may want initiative, but organize work so that almost all important decisions must move up the hierarchy. And it may hire creative people and then place them in systems that limit creativity.
This would eventually become increasingly important in Gary Hamel's work.
Because if people and expertise are crucial to the future of the business, a new question arises:
What kind of organization enables people to use this expertise?
Thus, we move from strategy and core competencies to a far more fundamental question of management, organization and bureaucracy .
That is the topic of the last part.
Academic background and further reading
This series also builds on my own professional journey through the Web Design study , the eMarketing study , Innovation and Commercialization and professional seminars in San Francisco and Oxford . Here you will find the background, professional environments and experiences that have followed the development from the early years of the web to today's digitalization.
Recommended literature
Gary Hamel's work on strategy, core competencies, innovation, and organization is part of a larger academic context. For those who wish to go further, I therefore recommend both books by Hamel and literature that complements his perspectives.
Here you will also find works by Peter Drucker on management, organization, innovation and knowledge work, as well as literature related to the Service-Profit Chain, where James L. Heskett, W. Earl Sasser Jr. and Leonard A. Schlesinger show the connections between employees, customer value, loyalty and financial results.
Together, the literature provides different perspectives on a question that is central to The Invisible Capital: How can people, expertise, management, innovation and customers together contribute to lasting value creation?
The Macat Team
Short review
This book from Macat Library analyzes CK Prahalad and Gary Hamel's classic 1990 article The Core Competence of the Corporation. It provides an accessible introduction to the theory of core competencies while also placing the original text in a larger academic and historical context.
A key point is that a business's competitiveness cannot be understood solely through the products it sells or the markets it operates in. Beneath this lies the organization's collective knowledge, skills, and ability to combine expertise and technology in ways that create value and are difficult for competitors to copy.
Why we recommend the book
I recommend this analysis because it makes one of Hamel and Prahalad's most important strategic ideas easier to explore and understand. It discusses the main arguments, the academic context, and the importance that the theory of core competencies has acquired.
For The Invisible Capital, this is particularly interesting. Core competencies show how knowledge and skills in individuals can be developed through collaboration and learning into an organizational capacity. Thus, competencies become not just something the business has – they become part of the business's ability to create future value.
Short review
Competing for the Future further develops Gary Hamel and CK Prahalad's strategic thinking on how businesses can prepare for and help shape the markets of the future. Rather than simply competing for market share in existing markets, the authors focus on the competencies, opportunities, and competitive positions that businesses must begin to develop before the future is clear to all.
A key perspective is that strategy is therefore not just about adapting the business to its environment. Businesses can also contribute to creating new markets, developing new needs and challenging established rules of the game.
Why we recommend the book
I recommend Competing for the Future because it shifts strategy work from the question of where the business competes today to the question of what it must learn and develop in order to create value tomorrow.
This makes the book particularly relevant to Invisible Capital. Future competitiveness lies not only in the capital, products and technology the business already has, but also in the skills it develops, the people who learn and collaborate, and the organization's ability to discover and create new opportunities.
Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad
Short review
Strategic Intent is a classic in the field of strategy. Originally published in the Harvard Business Review in 1989, the text introduced Hamel and Prahalad's idea that companies can set ambitions that extend far beyond their current resources and position. The HBR Classics edition brings this influential text together in book form.
Instead of simply adapting strategy to existing resources, the authors challenge businesses to create a long-term strategic ambition and mobilize the organization to find new ways to close the gap between today's starting point and future goals.
Why we recommend the book
I recommend Strategic Intent because it challenges the notion that strategy is primarily about managing what the business already has. Hamel and Prahalad show how ambition, learning, creativity, and human agency can make it possible to challenge competitors with far greater resources.
This makes the text particularly relevant to The Invisible Capital. Competitiveness is not just about how much capital, technology or market power the business controls today, but also about what the people in the organization are able to learn, develop and create together to make tomorrow's opportunities possible.
James L. Heskett, W. Earl Sasser Jr. and Christopher WL Hart
Short review
Service Breakthroughs: Changing the Rules of the Game from 1990 examines what characterizes businesses that manage to create outstanding services while achieving strong results.
Heskett, Sasser and Hart study how leading service companies organize work, develop people, design services and create value for customers. The perspective is bigger than the customer encounter itself. The authors view service as a system where strategy, organization, employees and customers must work together.
The book is particularly interesting because it came before the Service-Profit Chain was formulated as a model. Several of the questions that later became central to the Service-Profit Chain are already clear: What enables employees to deliver high quality? How is value created for the customer? And why are some companies able to do this better and more consistently than others?
Why we recommend the book
I recommend Service Breakthroughs because it shows that excellent service is not primarily about asking employees to be nicer to the customer.
Good service must be built into the business.
Management, organization, competence, work processes and understanding of the customer affect employees' ability to create good customer experiences.
This is a perspective that I believe is at least as relevant today.
When businesses digitize services or adopt artificial intelligence, it’s easy to focus on the technology itself. But a new solution doesn’t automatically create better service or greater customer value. It must be part of an organization that understands what the customer needs and enables people and technology to deliver it.
For me, Service Breakthroughs is therefore also interesting as an early step on the path towards the Service-Profit Chain.
It reminds us of a fundamental principle:
Outstanding customer experiences are not just created in the customer encounter. They are created by the business that makes the customer encounter possible.
James L. Heskett, W. Earl Sasser Jr. and Leonard A. Schlesinger
Short review
The Service Profit Chain from 1997 is the main work by James L. Heskett, W. Earl Sasser Jr. and Leonard A. Schlesinger on the connection between employees, customers and the financial performance of the business.
The book builds on the research behind the Service-Profit Chain and examines how quality within the business can affect employee satisfaction, loyalty and productivity. This is further linked to the value experienced by the customer, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty – and from there to growth and profitability.
The authors use examples from leading service companies to show that good financial results are not just about what happens in the market. They can have roots deep within the organization – in how people are managed, what working conditions they have, and how well the business enables them to create value for the customer.
Why we recommend the book
I recommend The Service Profit Chain because it provides a holistic understanding of something that is easily broken down into separate disciplines: employees, customer experience, loyalty, and profitability.
For me, this is also a book about value creation.
It shows why people in a business should not just be considered a cost. Competence, experience, relationships and understanding of the customer can affect the value the customer experiences – and thus also the business's results.
This makes the book particularly relevant to Invisible Capital. It provides a professional foundation for the connection between value-creating people and loyal customers, while at the same time the perspective can be further incorporated into today's discussions about digitalization and artificial intelligence.
Technology has changed businesses since 1997. But the question the book asks is still very relevant:
What needs to happen inside the business for the customer to experience value on the outside?
For anyone who wants to go deeper than the Service-Profit Chain model itself, this is the book I would choose.
James L. Heskett, Thomas O. Jones, Gary W. Loveman, W. Earl Sasser Jr. and Leonard A. Schlesinger
Short review
Putting the Service-Profit Chain to Work is the central work in which the Service-Profit Chain was presented in the Harvard Business Review in 1994.
The authors describe a continuous chain from quality internally within the business to employee satisfaction and productivity, on to the value experienced by the customer, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty – and finally the business's growth and profitability.
The interesting thing is where the chain begins. It doesn't start with sales or accounting, but inside the business and with the people who are going to create value for the customer.
Why we recommend the book
I recommend Putting the Service-Profit Chain to Work because it shows very clearly why employees, customers, and financial results should not be treated as separate entities.
For me, this hits the very core of Invisible Capital. Expertise, experience, work environment, relationships and customer insight are harder to see than machines, buildings and financial assets. But they can still have very concrete consequences for value creation.
The work is also interesting today because digitalization and artificial intelligence do not eliminate this connection. Technology may change how employees work and how customers interact with the business, but the crucial question remains:
Does the business create conditions that enable people and technology to create real value for the customer?
For anyone who wants to understand the Service-Profit Chain, this is the natural place to start.
Short review
In The Concept of the Corporation, Peter F. Drucker examines how a large corporation functions as an organization. The book builds on his study of General Motors and focuses on organizational structure, decentralization, leadership, responsibility, and the role of the corporation in society, among other things.
Why we recommend the book
The book is interesting because it shows an early and important feature of Drucker's thinking: The business is more than production, capital and financial results. It is also an organization of people, responsibilities and decisions. The Concept of the Corporation therefore provides a good starting point for understanding how Drucker's later thoughts on management, knowledge work and value creation developed.
Short review
The Practice of Management is one of Peter F. Drucker's most important books on modern management. In it, he discusses, among other things, the purpose of the business, the customer, management's responsibilities, goals, organization, and how people and resources can be directed towards results.
Why we recommend the book
The book provides a good starting point for understanding several of the ideas that later became important for modern management theory. Particularly relevant is Drucker's view that the purpose of the business must be understood from the outside, the importance of the customer, and the connection between goals, responsibility, and results. It thus also provides an important academic basis for understanding the connection between management, the customer, and value creation.
Short review
Innovation and Entrepreneurship shows how innovation can be understood as a systematic activity, not just the result of creativity, technology, or random ideas. Drucker examines how changes in markets, demographics, knowledge, and environments can create new opportunities for innovation and entrepreneurship.
Why we recommend the book
The book is particularly relevant because Drucker connects innovation to opportunity, action, and value creation. It provides a good professional perspective on how businesses can work systematically to detect change and translate it into new products, services, and solutions. It is therefore also a natural bridge between Drucker's thinking and the work on innovation in Invisible Capital.
Author(s): Chris Anderson
Short review
The Long Tail is one of the most influential books on how the internet has transformed commerce, marketing, and consumer behavior. Chris Anderson introduces the theory of the “Long Tail,” which explains how digital markets enable significant value creation through a large number of niche products, rather than relying on a few bestsellers.
The book shows how digital distribution, low inventory costs, search engines, and intelligent recommendation systems have made it profitable to offer an almost unlimited product range. Where traditional stores were limited by physical shelf space, online stores can offer millions of products and let customers find exactly what they are looking for.
Chris Anderson illustrates the theory with examples from Amazon, Netflix, Google, and the digital music industry, showing how the internet has changed the rules of competition for businesses around the world. Many of the insights have since become even more relevant through artificial intelligence, personalization, and modern search technology.
The authors take the reader through the entire process – from planning and organizing to publishing, managing and continuously improving content on websites and digital services. Although technology has evolved since the book was published, the principles of quality, relevance, management and long-term content work are at least as relevant in an era where search engines and artificial intelligence assess the credibility and usefulness of content.
Why we recommend the book
At The Invisible Capital, we consider The Long Tail to be one of the most important books in e-commerce, digitalization, and modern value creation.
The book explains why customers no longer just buy the most popular products, but increasingly find value in specialized products and services that meet individual needs. This insight has had enormous impact on the development of online stores, digital marketplaces, search engine optimization (SEO), information architecture, and content strategy.
Today we see that the theory also fits very well into the development of artificial intelligence. AI helps people discover relevant content, products and knowledge that were previously difficult to find. This has given the Long Tail principle a new dimension, where well-structured content and high professional quality are increasingly important for visibility, trust and value creation.
This is a book we believe everyone who works with e-commerce, digital marketing, customer experience, innovation, digital strategy or artificial intelligence should read.
Author/authors: Kristina Halvorson and Melissa Rach
Short review
How do you create content that actually helps people – and at the same time supports your business goals? Content Strategy for the Web is considered one of the most influential books in the field of content strategy and digital communications. The book shows how good content does not arise by chance, but through a deliberate strategy where user needs, the organization's goals, structure, work processes and management are closely linked.
The authors take the reader through the entire process – from planning and organizing to publishing, managing and continuously improving content on websites and digital services. Although technology has evolved since the book was published, the principles of quality, relevance, management and long-term content work are at least as relevant in an era where search engines and artificial intelligence assess the credibility and usefulness of content.
Why we recommend the book
At The Invisible Capital, we believe that good content is one of the most important forms of invisible value creation. A website is far more than design and technology – it is the content that builds trust, creates great customer experiences and helps people find the answers they are looking for.
This book is perfect for leaders, communications consultants, content producers, web editors, UX designers, and anyone working with digital services. It shows why a clear content strategy leads to better user experiences, more effective interactions, and stronger digital results over time.
In an era where artificial intelligence is increasingly important in how information is discovered, understood, and communicated, this book is more relevant than ever. It reminds us that technology alone never creates value – it is good, structured, and relevant content that makes the difference.
Short review
Don't Make Me Think is one of the world's most influential books on usability and web design. Since its first edition in 2000, the book has helped designers, developers, content producers, and managers understand a simple but powerful principle: Good digital services should be intuitive. The user should be able to complete their task without having to stop and think about how the website works.
Why we recommend the book
This is one of the books that has had the greatest impact on my own work with digital services. Over the years – from SAS and the Norwegian Opera & Ballet to working on Bærum Municipality’s website – the principles in this book have been an important reminder that technology is never an end in itself. The goal is to make everyday life easier for the people who use the services. Despite the fact that the book was published many years ago, the message is just as relevant today.
Authors: Ward Hanson and Kirthi Kalyanam
Short review
Internet Marketing & eCommerce provides a thorough introduction to how the internet has changed marketing, commerce, and business development. The book combines theory and practical examples in digital marketing, e-commerce, customer behavior, value creation, and digital business models. Although written at a time when the internet was still in its infancy, many of the fundamental principles are still highly relevant.
Why we recommend the book
This book was an important part of my own learning journey in digital marketing and e-commerce. It helped build my understanding of how technology, customer experience and business strategy are interconnected – an insight that later became very important in my work with SAS, the Norwegian Opera & Ballet, Bærum Municipality and eventually the project The Invisible Capital. Many of the ideas about customer value, digitalisation and innovation presented on the website have their roots in the knowledge this book conveys.
Authors: Clayton M. Christensen and Michael E. Raynor
Short review
In this sequel to The Innovator's Dilemma, Clayton Christensen shows how businesses can translate innovation theory into practical strategy. The book explains how companies can identify new growth opportunities, develop disruptive innovations, and build organizations that thrive in rapidly changing markets.
Why we recommend the book
While The Innovator's Dilemma explains why established businesses are often challenged, The Innovator's Solution provides concrete advice on how to meet the challenges. The book is therefore a natural next step for anyone who wants to understand innovation, strategy and long-term value creation.
Authors: Jeff Dyer, Hal Gregersen and Clayton M. Christensen
Short review
What characterizes people who create groundbreaking innovations? The authors identify five key skills – observation, questioning, experimentation, networking and association – that are common to the world's most innovative leaders and entrepreneurs.
Why we recommend the book
This book shifts the focus from organizations to the people behind innovation. It shows that creativity and innovation can be developed through deliberate training and experience. The perspectives align well with the philosophy behind Invisible Capital, where human competence and curiosity are the most important drivers of development.
Authors: Clayton M. Christensen, Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon and David S. Duncan
Short review
In this book, Clayton Christensen further develops the theory of Jobs to Be Done – the idea that customers do not primarily buy products, but "hire" them to solve specific needs. Through practical examples, the authors show how businesses can develop products and services that address customers' real-world challenges.
Why we recommend the book
For anyone working in customer experience, service design, and innovation, this is one of the most insightful books ever written. It reminds us that value creation always starts with understanding the people we are developing solutions for – a fundamental principle of Invisible Capital.
Author: Clayton M. Christensen
Short review
The Innovator's Dilemma is considered one of the most influential books on innovation and technological change. Clayton M. Christensen introduces the theory of disruptive innovation and explains why even the most successful businesses can fail when new technologies and business models challenge established markets. Through a series of examples, he shows how companies often focus on today's customers and incremental improvements, while overlooking innovations that later change entire industries.
Why we recommend the book
This is one of the books that has had the greatest impact on modern innovation thinking. When I first read it, it gave me a whole new perspective on why some businesses succeed in transformation, while others lag behind – even when they are well led. The insight has been an important part of my own understanding of digitalization, innovation and change management, and many of the reflections in The Invisible Capital build on the ideas Clayton Christensen presents in this classic. The book is as relevant today, in the face of artificial intelligence and digital transformation, as it was when it was published.
Author: Henry Chesbrough
Short review
Henry Chesbrough introduced the concept of Open Innovation and changed the way many businesses think about research and development. He shows how companies can create more innovation through collaboration with customers, universities, start-ups, suppliers and other external partners.
Why we recommend the book
Open Innovation has had a major influence on modern innovation thinking and was also an important topic during the seminars in Oxford and San Francisco. The book shows why future value creation occurs in the interaction between people, businesses and knowledge environments – not within closed organizations alone.
Authors: W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne
Short review
Blue Ocean Strategy challenges businesses to shift their focus away from fierce competition and instead create new markets with little or no competition. The authors present strategies and models that help organizations develop innovative products, services, and business models.
Why we recommend the book
This book has inspired leaders around the world to rethink strategy and innovation. Instead of competing for the same customers, it shows how businesses can create new value through creativity and differentiation. The perspectives align very well with the themes of innovation, digitalization, and long-term value creation in Invisible Capital.
Authors: Patricia B. Seybold
Short review
Patricia Seybold shows how businesses can create better products and services by actively involving customers in the innovation process. The book describes how dialogue, co-creation and close collaboration with users can provide better solutions and stronger competitiveness.
Why we recommend the book
Customers often hold the most important insights into how products and services can be improved. This book emphasizes the importance of listening, involving, and learning from users – a perspective that is echoed in many of the articles on The Invisible Capital. Innovation rarely happens alone; it is created in the interaction between people.
Authors: Philip Evans and Thomas S. Wurster
Short review
This book analyzes how digital information is changing competitive conditions, markets, and business strategies. The authors explain how the internet is disrupting established structures and creating new opportunities for businesses that are able to think differently.
Why we recommend the book
Although written early in the internet revolution, the book describes many of the developments that still characterize business today. It provides valuable perspective on how digitalization affects value chains, competition, and innovation – themes that are central to Invisible Capital.
Authors: Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams
Short review
Wikinomics shows how openness, sharing and collaboration across organizations create new forms of innovation and value creation. Through a number of international examples, the authors describe how digital networks make it possible to develop products, services and knowledge together.
Why we recommend the book
This book was groundbreaking when it was first published, and many of the ideas have since become a natural part of everyday digital life. The perspectives on collaboration, knowledge sharing, and open innovation processes align very well with the philosophy behind Invisible Capital, where people and networks are at the center of value creation.
Author(s): Author: Michael E. Porter
Short review
Competitive Strategy is Michael E. Porter's classic work on how companies can understand the competition they find themselves in and develop a position that provides a basis for long-term profitability. Porter shifts the focus from the individual competitor to the structure of the entire industry and shows how competition is affected by customers, suppliers, new entrants, substitutes and the rivalry between existing companies. This forms the basis for what has later become known as Porter's Five Forces. The book is also about how companies can choose a competitive strategy on the basis of this analysis. It thus established an analytical language for strategy that has gained great importance in both research, teaching and practical strategy work.
Why we recommend the book
We recommend Competitive Strategy because it provides the analytical foundation for much of the thinking Porter later develops in What Is Strategy?. If a company is to choose a unique strategic position, it must also understand the competitive forces, the industry structure and the factors that affect the ability to create and retain value. The book is particularly useful because it reminds us that strategy is not just about internal goals, plans and ambitions. Strategy must be developed in the face of customers, competitors, suppliers, technology and structural changes in the market. Together with What Is Strategy?, the book therefore provides a much richer picture: First, the company must understand the competitive arena. Then, it must choose how to be different.
Author(s): Author: Michael E. Porter
Short review
In Competitive Advantage, Porter moves the analysis from the industry to the business itself. The main question is how competitive advantage is actually created. One of the book's most important contributions is the value chain, where the business is understood as a system of activities that collectively develop, produce, market, deliver and support a product or service. Competitive advantage cannot therefore be understood only through products or overall strategies; one must examine the activities that create costs, differentiation and value. This understanding later becomes central to Porter's argument about strategic fit: the activities must not only be good in isolation, but also fit together and reinforce each other.
Why we recommend the book
We recommend Competitive Advantage because it brings strategy right down to where value is actually created: in the activities the business performs. This makes the book particularly relevant together with What Is Strategy?. When Porter argues in 1996 that strategy consists of performing different activities than competitors, or performing similar activities in other ways, this builds on the thinking he developed here. For our perspective on value creation, this is particularly interesting. Value does not arise because the business has formulated a strategy on a document, but through people, expertise, technology, processes, collaboration and activities that together enable the business to create something that customers value. The book therefore provides an important connection between strategy, competitive advantage and actual value creation.
Author(s): Author: Michael E. Porter
Short review
In The Competitive Advantage of Nations, Porter raises the perspective from business to countries, regions and business environments. The book is based on extensive studies of the competitiveness of ten leading trading nations and examines why certain countries and business clusters are particularly successful in certain industries. A central premise is that national prosperity is not simply something a country inherits through natural resources or other given conditions. It is created, and productivity, innovation, competence, competition and the quality of the environment in which businesses operate are crucial. Here, Porter also develops the well-known diamond model to explain how different national and regional conditions can interact and stimulate competitiveness.
Why we recommend the book
We recommend The Competitive Advantage of Nations because here Porter extends the strategy perspective to the ecosystem surrounding the business itself. Value creation does not occur in a vacuum. Businesses develop in societies with education, research, infrastructure, capital, suppliers, demanding customers, competing businesses and public institutions. This makes the book particularly interesting for understanding value creation as an interaction between people, businesses and society. It also provides an important corrective to the notion that a country's competitiveness can mainly be understood through low costs or access to natural resources. Innovation, productivity and the ability to continuously develop are far more central to Porter's explanation.
Author: Joan Magretta
Short review
Understanding Michael Porter brings together and explains the most important parts of Michael Porter's strategic thinking in one accessible whole. Joan Magretta herself worked on strategy at the Harvard Business Review and organizes Porter's ideas around two fundamental questions: What is competition, and what is strategy? She explains, among other things, the Five Forces, competitive advantage, the value chain, value creation, trade-offs, fit, and strategic continuity. This makes the connection between Porter's various works clearer than when the concepts are studied separately. The book also includes an interview with Porter.
Why we recommend the book
We recommend Understanding Michael Porter because it helps the reader see the whole picture of Porter's understanding of strategy. Porter is often reduced to the Five Forces or a few models used in isolation. Magretta shows why this is too simple. Competition, value creation, strategic positioning, trade-offs, activity systems, fit and continuity are interconnected. This makes the book a particularly good supplement after reading What Is Strategy?. It makes it easier to understand why Porter does not view strategy as a plan or a collection of goals, but as a coherent system of choices about how the business will create value and compete over time.
Authors: Harvard Business Review, Michael E. Porter, W. Chan Kim, Renée A. Mauborgne and more
Short review
HBR's 10 Must Reads on Strategy brings together some of Harvard Business Review's most influential writings on strategy. The original collection from 2011 features Michael E. Porter's What Is Strategy? as its main article and combines it with works on competitive forces, Blue Ocean Strategy, the organization's vision, business models, strategy execution, and the Balanced Scorecard, among others. The result is not one unified theory of strategy, but multiple perspectives on how organizations can develop, formulate, and execute strategy.
Why we recommend the book
We recommend HBR's 10 Must Reads on Strategy because it places Porter in a broader strategic context. After reading What Is Strategy?, it will be interesting to encounter other central perspectives and see how they complement, challenge, or extend Porter's understanding. The collection also shows why strategy cannot be reduced to a single model. Competitive position, choice, innovation, business model, execution, priorities, and measurement must be seen in context. For the reader who wants to move on from Porter and into the strategy discipline more generally, this is therefore a very good introduction.
Author: Joseph E. Stiglitz and Bruce C. Greenwald
Short review:
Creating a Learning Society examines how knowledge, learning, and technological development contribute to economic growth and long-term value creation. Joseph E. Stiglitz and Bruce C. Greenwald challenge the notion that economic development is primarily about accumulating more physical capital. They argue that society's ability to create, disseminate, and apply knowledge is crucial for productivity growth and increased living standards. A key point is that learning does not only occur in schools and universities. It also occurs in businesses, through work, production, innovation, and interaction between people and organizations. Knowledge can also spread from one business and one part of the economy to others.
The book thus provides an important perspective on why human capital, competence, innovation and learning must be understood as central parts of a society's ability to create value over time.
Why we recommend the book
We recommend Creating a Learning Society because it expands the understanding of what lies behind economic value creation.
Machines, technology and financial capital are important, but they do not create productivity growth alone. Behind the development are people who learn, develop knowledge, improve work processes, share experiences and find new solutions.
This makes the book particularly relevant to Invisible Capital and our perspective on value creation: A significant part of society's value-creating capacity is found in the knowledge, competence, and learning ability of the people who participate in the economy.
Stiglitz and Greenwald thus provide an academic foundation for one of the most important relationships in modern value creation:
Author: Mariana Mazzucato
Short review
In The Value of Everything, Mariana Mazzucato asks a fundamental question: What exactly is value – and who creates it? Mazzucato returns to the historical discussions of value in economics and shows how the understanding of value creation has changed. She challenges the notion that high income, high prices or large profits necessarily mean that correspondingly large values have been created. One of the book's most important contributions is the distinction between value creation and value extraction . Mazzucato examines the financial sector, the pharmaceutical industry, innovation and the public sector, among others, and argues that we must become better at distinguishing between activities that actually create new values, and activities that primarily extract values that have already been created.
The book also challenges the traditional notion that the private sector creates value while the public sector mainly consumes or redistributes it. Innovation and economic development often arise through a complex interaction between public investment, research, businesses, capital and people.
Author: Philippe Aghion, Céline Antonin and Simon Bunel
Short review
The Power of Creative Destruction is about one of the most important drivers of long-term economic growth: innovation.
Philippe Aghion, Céline Antonin and Simon Bunel build on Joseph Schumpeter's classic idea of "creative destruction" – the process by which new technologies, businesses, products and ideas challenge and replace existing solutions.
But the book is not just about the disappearance of the old. The authors examine why some economies manage to create continuous innovation and productivity growth, while others stagnate. Competition, entrepreneurship, research, education, institutions and public policy thus become important parts of the explanation.
Creative destruction also comes at a cost. New technologies and businesses create opportunities and jobs, but can also make existing skills, tasks and business models less relevant. The challenge is therefore to create societies that both promote innovation and enable people to participate in the transition.
Why we recommend the book
We recommend The Power of Creative Destruction because it shows why innovation is a fundamental driver of value creation .
Value creation is not just about producing more of what we already produce. It also occurs when people develop new ideas, technology, and ways of working that enable us to solve tasks better than before.
This makes the book particularly relevant to The Invisible Capital. Behind innovation are people with knowledge, expertise, creativity and experience. But Aghion's perspective also shows that human capital must be part of a larger system where competition, institutions, research, investment and policy create the conditions for new ideas to actually turn into economic and social development.
The book thus provides an important context in our understanding of value creation:
Knowledge → new ideas → innovation → productivity growth → long-term value creation.
Author: Philippe Aghion, Céline Antonin and Simon Bunel
Short review
Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance is one of Douglass C. North's most important works on why some societies are more successful than others in creating economic development over time.
North shifts attention from traditional factors of production such as capital and labor to the institutions that shape how people, businesses, and governments act and cooperate. Institutions are society's formal and informal rules of the game – including laws, regulations, norms, traditions, and established ways of organizing interaction.
These rules of the game affect the incentives that people and organizations face. They also affect investments, knowledge development, cooperation, transaction costs, and which economic activities emerge.
North also shows that institutions develop over time. History therefore matters: Today's economic opportunities are influenced by institutional choices and development paths that can stretch far back in time.
Why we recommend the book
We recommend Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance because it explains a crucial aspect of value creation that easily becomes invisible:
Value creation needs good rules of the game.
People may have knowledge. Businesses may have capital. Entrepreneurs may have great ideas. A society may have natural resources and advanced technology. But outcomes are also influenced by the institutions that determine how people can collaborate, invest, compete, make deals, and develop businesses.
This makes North particularly interesting for our understanding of trust as part of invisible capital. Trust is not the same as institutions, but stable rules of the game, credible agreements, and well-functioning institutions can reduce uncertainty and make economic interaction easier.
North thus gives us another important part of the value creation picture:
Institutions → predictability and incentives → cooperation and investment → productive activity → long-term value creation.
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