Stephane Garelli
ISBN: 0-470-02569-7
Cloth
288 pages
March 2006

Establishes a continuum between the concepts of competitiveness of nations, competitiveness of enterprises, the structure of work, value systems as well as management competencies and personal skills. The book explore how nations manage competitiveness to enhance national prosperity, how companies maximize their competitiveness to create added value (and ultimately profit) and how people adapt their skills and competencies in order to be successful.

Competitiveness is a rich and multifaceted concept that touches upon hard economic issues such as monetary policy and softer social considerations such as value systems. The prime source of competitiveness lies in enterprises through the creation of added value. The state provides the institutional environment that allows enterprises to maximise the creation of wealth, and ensures that a smooth and sustainable flow of economic wealth from enterprises is maintained in order to provide welfare and services for the population. The ultimate goal of competitiveness is to raise the prosperity of people. Competitiveness is a much used but poorly defined concept. The term is abundantly used and abused despite the absence of a concise definition. Nevertheless, it is a force, like gravity, that affects everybody. The best we can do is to understand and adapt to competitiveness: what does it mean, how does it work, how does it affect nations, companies and people, are there any rules?

The purpose of the book is to address these questions and to provide some answers through numerous examples illustrating the various facets of competitiveness. Extensive use of drawings, graphs and tables provide the readers with breathing space while alternating theoretical discussion with experiences and facts drawn from history and the daily life of enterprises and nations.