A Recovery Squandered

Michael E. Porter; Jan   Rivkin; Mihir   Desai; Katherine M. Gehl; William R. Kerr; Manjari  Raman

Report | 2019

A Recovery Squandered: The State of U.S. Competitiveness 2019

by Michael E. Porter, Jan Rivkin, Mihir Desai, Katherine M. Gehl, William R. Kerr and Manjari Raman

Abstract

In this report, the authors synthesize their views on U.S. competitiveness and unveil the findings of the 2019 HBS surveys on U.S. competitiveness. Specifically, this report—built on the survey findings and eight years of prior research on the competitiveness of the United States—highlights a disturbing pattern: despite a decade of steady economic growth since the Great Recession, America has done remarkably little to address underlying structural weaknesses in the country’s economy and society. The nation has squandered the recovery.

Keywords: U.S. competitiveness; Competitive Strategy; Macroeconomics; Government and Politics; United States;

Language: English

Format: Print

Read Now

Citation:

Porter, Michael E., Jan Rivkin, Mihir Desai, Katherine M. Gehl, William R. Kerr, and Manjari Raman. "A Recovery Squandered: The State of U.S. Competitiveness 2019." Report, U.S. Competitiveness Project, Harvard Business School, December 2019.

In February 2020, Nick Dalton, executive vice president HR business transformation at Unilever, reflected on the changing nature of work marked by rapid advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation. Launched in 2016, Unilever’s Future of Work initiative aimed to accelerate the speed of change throughout the organization and prepare the workforce for a digitalized and highly automated era. Despite the success over the last three years, the program still faced significant challenges in its implementation: How should Unilever, one of the world's largest consumer goods companies, adapt and accelerate the speed of change throughout the organization? Was it even possible to lead a systematic, agile workforce transformation across several geographies with local context differences? How could Unilever prepare and upscale its workforce for the future?

Irfhan Rawji (MBA 2004) launched MobSquad in October 2018 to help American tech start-ups retain hard-to-find talent, many of whom struggled with U.S. work visa issues, such as software engineers with experience in artificial intelligence, machine learning, or data science. MobSquad also helped companies fill open roles by tapping into its database of pre-vetted foreign tech workers. While there was growing demand for these specialists, the talent supply in the U.S. was relatively constrained and American companies often filled positions with foreign-born workers using a temporary visa called the H-1B. However, U.S. President Donald Trump temporarily suspended immigration in June 2020, including foreign workers on an H-1B visa during the COVID-19 pandemic. Rawji contemplated what kind of impact this would have on MobSquad and the tech industry in Canada. There was already evidence that a growing number of foreign tech workers were choosing Canada over the U.S. due to Trump’s immigration policies. Now Rawji suspected that Trump’s latest move would further accelerate this trend, and he wanted MobSquad to be ready to help companies and workers who had been counting on the H-1B.

Faculty & Research

A Recovery Squandered: The State of U.S. Competitiveness 2019

Abstract

Citation:

About the Authors

More from these Authors