December 6, 2000
Contact: Jim Aisner
HBS Communications
Phone: (617) 495-6157
Harvard Professor Michael Porter Accorded Prestigious Honor
BOSTON -- His books adorn the shelves of CEOs, heads of state, academicians, and business school students alike. Countries and companies all over the world have embraced his theories on competition and strategy in the expanding global marketplace. His work has also been applied to a variety of important social issues, from the economic development of U.S. inner cities to environmental concerns.
Michael E. Porter MBA, ’71, Ph.D. ’73, C. Roland Christensen Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School (HBS), whose prodigious research and course development efforts center on both economic theory and business practice, has been appointed to a University Professorship, the highest professional distinction for a Harvard faculty member.
“It’s a great honor,” Porter stated. “I am also proud to follow in the footsteps of my late HBS teacher, mentor, and friend, Chris Christensen, as a University Professor. This appointment is particularly important to me since the scope of my work has broadened considerably over the years.”
Porter will hold the Bishop William Lawrence University Professorship, named after a member of the Harvard Corporation who played a key role in raising the funds from banker George F. Baker that led to the building of the Business School’s Soldiers Field campus in the 1920s. Porter’s professorship is the 20th in a line of venerable positions endowed at Harvard since 1936. At that time, President James B. Conant identified the need to establish “a certain number of University Professors with roving commissions whose teaching and creative work shall not be hampered by departmental considerations.” University Professors are encouraged to cross over disciplinary boundaries in their research and often divide their time between their “home” departments or schools and others.
Commenting on the appointment, President Neil L. Rudenstine said, “From every point of view as an imaginative and penetrating thinker, an influential writer, and a gifted teacher Mike Porter fits the role of University Professor perfectly. His work has steadily expanded in breadth. He spans many fields, including issues related to global competitiveness and problems in health care. He will now have the chance to bring his extraordinary energy and intelligence to bear on many subjects of inquiry across the entire University.”
HBS Dean Kim B. Clark called the appointment “a wonderful tribute to Mike Porter, who during almost three decades on our faculty has been a pioneer in using economic principles to solve important problems in competitiveness.”
Porter joined the HBS faculty in 1973 after earning his doctorate in business economics at Harvard, and he soon became one of the School’s youngest tenured professors. A prolific scholar, he has written 16 books and more than 75 articles. His 1980 volume "Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors,” which has since been translated into 19 languages, is considered the pioneering treatise on corporate competition and strategy. His most recent book, “Can Japan Compete?,” has just been published.
“Mike Porter is probably the world’s most influential business academic and one of a handful of the most influential who have ever lived,” said Thomas K. McCraw, Isidor Straus Professor of Business History at HBS. “His insights and models regarding competitive strategy have become the canon in this area of study and the starting point for a considerable amount of work by other scholars around the globe. In short, he has reconstituted the field of business strategy.”
In recent years, Porter has served as an advisor to several foreign governments, including Canada, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the seven nations of Central America. He has also worked with leaders in Catalonia, Scotland, Connecticut, and other states and provinces in this country and abroad.
In Massachusetts, Porter chaired former Gov. William Weld’s Council on Economic Growth and Technology; beginning in 1991 he led the effort to develop and implement a new economic strategy for the Commonwealth. In addition, Porter is co-chair (with Jeffrey Sachs, Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade) of the Global Competitiveness Report, an annual ranking of the competitiveness and growth prospects of countries.
Porter has served as a strategic adviser to a number of U.S. and international corporations, including Entel, Navistar, Procter & Gamble, and Royal Dutch Shell. He sits on the boards of several companies as well and has worked with numerous nonprofit organizations. Porter is also Chairman and CEO of The Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC), a private-sector initiative he founded in 1994 to catalyze inner-city business development across the country. In addition, he serves as senior adviser to the Center for Effective Philanthropy, an organization he co-founded in 1999 to improve philanthropic performance.
Throughout his career, Porter has maintained a high profile in the Business School’s MBA and Executive Education Programs. A course he created, Competition and Strategy, is a core requirement for Harvard MBA students. “I thrive in the classroom,” he said, “because I find HBS students challenging and invigorating.”
An all-state football and baseball player while growing up in New Jersey, Porter played intercollegiate golf as an undergraduate at Princeton, where he studied aerospace and mechanical engineering. His accomplishments on the links won him All-America honors in 1968. In fact, his first look at Harvard came when he arrived in Cambridge to compete against the Crimson golf team. Porter, who resides in Brookline with his wife, Debbie, and their two daughters, spends his leisure time these days watching his children play sports.
“I care about changing how people think and how they behave,” Porter noted in a 1996 interview. “I’m pleased when other academicians use my work. But I feel equally satisfied when people tell me my ideas made a difference in their lives.”