Comments on: The Industry Analysis/Positioning Dominance Myth http://organizationsandmarkets.com/2008/04/11/the-industry-analysispositioning-dominance-myth/ Economics of organizations, strategy, entrepreneurship, innovation, and more Sat, 19 Jul 2008 23:28:29 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=MU By: David Hoopes http://organizationsandmarkets.com/2008/04/11/the-industry-analysispositioning-dominance-myth/#comment-70067 David Hoopes Thu, 17 Apr 2008 05:04:11 +0000 http://organizationsandmarkets.wordpress.com/?p=1477#comment-70067 Given how much Porter is cited I'm afraid Phil's argument that it was not a dominant for seems week. Porter's 1985 book is cited over 10,000 times on Google. Also, many if not most economists believed that differences between firms in the same industry were trivial short run things. Phil's book is great. But, it does not really offer an alternative theory to equilibrium economics or any model based on relaxed assumptions of simple microeconomics. He simply shows how the assumptions do not hold with reality. Given how much Porter is cited I’m afraid Phil’s argument that it was not a dominant for seems week. Porter’s 1985 book is cited over 10,000 times on Google. Also, many if not most economists believed that differences between firms in the same industry were trivial short run things.

Phil’s book is great. But, it does not really offer an alternative theory to equilibrium economics or any model based on relaxed assumptions of simple microeconomics. He simply shows how the assumptions do not hold with reality.

]]> By: spostrel http://organizationsandmarkets.com/2008/04/11/the-industry-analysispositioning-dominance-myth/#comment-70061 spostrel Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:43:30 +0000 http://organizationsandmarkets.wordpress.com/?p=1477#comment-70061 You are right. Positioning analysis was dominant in teaching and consulting but received very little scholarly attention. Resource-based theory is dominant in scholarship but has a minimal profile in consulting and a pretty small one in teaching. There are a lot of things about positioning analysis we still don't understand very well, e.g. general quality-quantity relationships under different assumptions about costs and demand distributions. I'm not sure there's much of an appetite in the field for tackling such problems. You are right. Positioning analysis was dominant in teaching and consulting but received very little scholarly attention. Resource-based theory is dominant in scholarship but has a minimal profile in consulting and a pretty small one in teaching.

There are a lot of things about positioning analysis we still don’t understand very well, e.g. general quality-quantity relationships under different assumptions about costs and demand distributions. I’m not sure there’s much of an appetite in the field for tackling such problems.

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