Harvard's Michael Porter Honored by Nicaragua; Competitiveness Expert Receives Nation's Highest Recognition

Business Wire, June 27, 2002

Business Editors

Michael E. Porter, the Bishop William Lawrence University Professor at Harvard (based at Harvard Business School) and a renowned expert on the competitiveness of companies and countries, has received the Order of Jose Dolores Estrada, Batalla de San Jacinto, with the rank of Great Cross, from the government of Nicaragua. Honored by President Enrique Bolanos at a ceremony in Managua earlier in June, Porter was lauded for his help in developing Nicaragua's national economic strategy as well as his work on Central American economic integration.

The focus of Porter's prescription focuses on improving Nicaragua's business environment and nurturing industry clusters of Nicaraguan strengths, including textiles, tourism, energy, meat and dairy products, fishing and aquaculture, forestry, and agribusiness.

"Improving the microeconomic business environment is essential to the long-term growth and welfare of Nicaragua and its people," Porter said. "Prosperity is not derived from extensive land subsidies, tariff protection, or foreign aid."

Named after a heroic nineteenth-century Nicaraguan general and established in 1956, the Order of Jose Dolores honors both nationals and foreigners for their "extraordinary services to Nicaragua and humanity." Among former recipients are U.S. Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush and United Nations Secretary General and Nobel Laureate Kofi Annan.

"I have been privileged to assist Nicaragua over a number of years as the country recovers from the Sandinista revolution and charts a new economic path," Porter said. "This great honor will only bring me closer to Nicaraguans and cause me to redouble my efforts."

A member of the Harvard Business School faculty since 1973, Porter became a University Professor (Harvard's highest academic designation) in 2001. He currently heads the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness, a joint creation of Harvard Business School and Harvard University.

Porter is the author of more than eighty-five articles and sixteen books, including such landmark works as Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors (1980), Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance (1985), and The Competitive Advantage of Nations (1990).

Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness: http://www.isc.hbs.edu/