The Study And Review On Michael E.Porter's Competitive Advantage

Competitive Advantage is one of the most famous works by Professor Michael E. Porter, who is the authority in the field of competitive strategy and competitiveness nowadays. This thesis introduces the main contents of this works and makes some review on it, to hope that it will be used for reference to our corporations in the process of cultivating their competitive advantage. The body of this thesis is devised into five parts: Part one gives an introduction of Professor Porter's life and research fields, to make clear his competitive theory in a whole. Part two describes the history situation in which Porter wrote the works. Part three introduces the main contents of the works: Porter created the Value Chain as a tool and apply it to various strategy, such as Cost Leadership strategy, Differentiation strategy, Focus strategy, Horizontal Strategy, the strategy under uncertainty and the strategy for defense and attack, in order to expound how a corporation creates and sustains the competitive advantage. Part four evaluate the works, including its contributions and defects. Part five gives an example of the steel corporation, to explain how the Chinese corporation can use the ways and theory provided in the works.