Competitive advantage of a nation in the global arena: a quantitative advancement to Porter's diamond applied to the UK, USA and BRIC nations

Abstract

Improvements in technology, communication and infrastructure are driving aspects of globalization to new heights. In the light of this, there are interesting debates on the growth of the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) relative to the competitive advantage of the main OECD nations. This paper utilizes the framework within Porter's diamond of competitive advantage and develops a quantitative approach to determine the competitive advantage of a nation. This approach has so far eluded most contemporary discussions surrounding Porter's diamond. This paper attempts to redress this balance by providing a more robust framework for assessing the relative global competitive advantage of a nation. Applying this approach to the BRIC nations, the UK and the USA has yielded some interesting results indicating that the UK is currently the most competitive nation and that China will soon position itself as a truly competitive one. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.