Microeconomics of Competitiveness
Professor Michael E. Porter has created a University-wide graduate course The Microeconomics of Competitiveness: Firms, Clusters, and Economic Development offered to students from around the Harvard University community including the Harvard Business School, the Kennedy School of Government, and the Harvard School of Public Health. It is designed as a platform that can be taught not only at Harvard, but also at universities around the world.
In addition to case studies, lecture slides, and other printed materials, the course platform includes an extensive website to assist professors in preparing for and teaching the course. The course platform also includes an extensive library of video content that can be utilized in courses taught at other universities including Prof. Porter's lectures, lectures by other faculty, and videos of case protagonists including heads of state, senior ministers, governors, and others.
The Microeconomics of Competitiveness course is concerned with the determinants of competitiveness and economic development viewed from a bottom-up, microeconomic perspective. While sound macroeconomic policies, stable legal and political systems, and the accumulation of factors of production affect the potential for competitiveness, wealth is actually created at the microeconomic level. The strategies of firms, the vitality of clusters, and quality of the business environment in which competition takes place are what ultimately determine a nation's or region's productivity.
Given the complex nature of the subject and the learning value of peer interaction and discussion, the course is taught at each university by a local instructor rather than delivered online or taught via distance learning. However, content and assistance for instructors is provided in the course platform and there are various types of interaction between the students at different locations.
In addition to utilizing the Harvard video content in classes, other schools can "sit in" on a Harvard class via a live webcast if the instructor desires. Local institutions can choose how much of the video material to utilize and can supplement or replace the videotaped lectures with their own lectures. Advanced topics can be set locally, and additional topics substituted at the institutions discretion.
Students taking the course around the globe register for access to a website, which contains sections on each topic or session tailored to their location. Video lectures and guests appearances relevant to the session are archived on the site after the class session concludes and indexed so students can search for specific topics. Another part of the site contains a discussion group on session topics, including past instruction postscripts and discussions from other schools. Many institutions have translated the session information into their own languages!
Each student that registers through the on-line process provides information about themselves: Name, Employer, Position, School, Cluster, Subcluster, etc. This information is then searchable by students taking the course in other locations through an on-line Member Directory. The member directory is helpful for team projects, general communication, research, etc.
A unique feature of the course is an extensive website for instructors. In addition to many of the printed materials, the site includes content designed to assist instructors: (1) audio taped "teaching group meetings" in which the instructors discuss how the case/session is to be taught; (2) videos of Professor Porter and other faculty actually teaching the class; (3) videos of lectures; (4) videos of guests. Items (1) and (2) are designed only for instructors. Items (3) and (4) can be downloaded by instructors and utilized in class.
More information is available on the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness website. +More
