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The purpose of this paper is to provide practitioners and students a practical yet comprehensive set of templates for applying Michael Porter's five forces framework for industry analysis.

Based on experiences with practicing managers, small business owners, industry analysts, academics, and students, a set of industry analysis templates that systematically guides an analyst through a comprehensive assessment of the five forces is presented with the following: copies of the templates themselves, descriptions of their structure and use, an example of a completed template (spectator sports industry), and a discussion of possible modifications and extensions.

The industry analysis templates described in this paper retain the comprehensiveness of Porter's framework but in a format much more student/manager-oriented using graphics, visual cues, a uniform structure, and straightforward descriptions of concepts. Template users show evidence of deeper strategic insights and have a sophisticated tool for future analysis.

Managers, analysts, students, and others wanting robust industry analysis are provided with a comprehensive, structured, and practical set of templates to use in assessing an industry using the five forces framework.

Leading strategic management texts and other sources provide no comprehensive, systematic, and robust format for conducting a five forces analysis of an industry. The set of industry analysis templates described in this paper provides a visually compelling, user-friendly format that can assist those analyzing industries gain important strategic insights not only into industry drivers, but also important competitive advantages for individual firms.

The purpose of this paper is to establish the extent to which Porter’s five competitive forces (PFCF) framework, among other factors drive the choice of response strategies adopted by public universities in Kenya.

The study design was descriptive and utilized a cross-sectional survey of all the public universities in Kenya by administering a structured questionnaire to the top management team. Additional primary data were collected through observations and interviews. Secondary data were also collected in order to corroborate the data collected from the primary sources.

PFCF framework influenced the choice of response strategies adopted by the public universities “to a great extent”, the most influence being the threat from new entrants. The influence of the choice of response strategies by PFCF framework was independent of the age and category of the universities. Pressure from stakeholders, changes in government policies and regulations, reforms in higher education, unethical response strategies by some universities and university location also influenced the choice of response strategies.

The study collected data from the top management team only; however, other stakeholders could have given additional information not reported here. Further, the research only considered public universities and not all higher education institutions (HEIs) in Kenya, and was cross-sectional, hence generalization and application of the results over a long time, respectively, may be limited.

The value of this study lies in HEIs achieving a competitive advantage and shaping strategic policy direction in the face of changing environment and global commodification of higher education.

Current public universities in Kenya have adopted a business-like approach in their operations in view of changing environment and have adopted coping strategies. Therefore, understanding the factors that influence the choice of response strategies is important for improvement of quality, efficiency and effectiveness as well as in policy formulation and serve as a guide to strategic management.

Key forces shaping higher education drive institutions to make strategic choices to locate themselves in niches where they can make use of their resources effectively and efficiently. However, the concepts of strategy and strategic positioning in higher education are contested issues due to the nature and complexity of the sector and the university. As an industry facing increasing pressure toward marketization and competition, this study calls for an analysis of higher education, as an industry, in a more business-oriented framework. This chapter makes a contribution to scholarly research in higher education by applying Porter’s five forces framework to medical education. In doing so, it provides a foundational perspective on the competitive landscape, its environment, its organizations, and the groups and individuals that make up the higher and medical education sector.

Porter's activity‐based view of the firm is a comprehensive strategic framework which analyzes firm‐level competitive advantage. Although Porter's activity‐based view is widely cited by academics, taught to students, and applied by practitioners, little is known about its intellectual roots. Given that a framework's intellectual antecedents not only determine its current content, but also its future development, this paper aims to examine the intellectual roots of Porter's activity‐based view and the value chain.

The paper examines Porter's writings in an effort to document his influences while developing the activity‐based view and value chain. Porter's and other scholars' explanations are found to be lacking, so the paper ventures further down paths first suggested by Porter and others.

Whereas Porter's five forces framework built on the existing industrial organization paradigm, the activity‐based view is not derived from any existing paradigms. While consultants of the 1970s impacted Porter's development of the value chain and the activity‐based view, its deeper roots lay in operations research, particularly activity analysis; and the work of Arch Shaw, who was the first to teach a business policy course at Harvard Business School. Porter's contribution is to bring the diverse threads together into a coherent whole which managers can apply to analyze and improve their competitive positions.

Following Porter, the authors argue that activities are a key link between resource holdings and strategic positions. Therefore, it is only when the activity‐based and resource‐based views are integrated that they provide a comprehensive explanation of firm value creation.

The paper is the first to critically examine the intellectual antecedents of the activity‐based view.

Medical education is an evidence-driven professional field that operates in an increasingly regulated environment as compared to other fields within universities. The purpose of this paper is to establish the extent to which Porter’s five competitive forces framework (Porter, 2008) can drive the management of medical schools in Australia.

Drawing on data from semi-structured interviews with over 20 staff from 6 case study Australian medical schools, this paper explores Australian medical education, by looking at the current policy context, structure and interactions between organizations within the system.

The findings provide evidence that environmental forces affect the nature of competition in medical education, and that competitive advantage can be gained by medical schools from a sustained analysis of the industry in which they operate in. Consequently, it is possible to apply a pre-dominantly profit-oriented framework to higher education.

As an industry facing increasing pressure toward marketization and competition, the findings provide sufficient evidence that an analysis of higher education as an industry is possible.

The findings provide evidence that strategic leadership and management in higher education should encompass greater levels of delegation and decision making at all levels. Effective leadership should focus on creating an inspiring vision of the future through a sustained analysis of the industry in which they operate.

The study has made a key contribution through an industry analysis of Australian medical education, which provide important implications for leadership and management in higher education. The study is of significant value to researchers as well as senior management in higher education.

To investigate the impact of the internet in “traditional” market rules.

An opinion piece based on Michael Porter's arguments for the new economy.

Michael Porter's arguments for the new economy provide a useful starting point in the analysis of the environment. His arguments are based on exaggerated phenomena. Factors that determine a sector's profitability could be enriched with the innovation that prevails in the particular sector.

An attempt to criticize Porter's thoughts regarding internet and industry structure and to enrich the Porter's five forces model with the “power of innovation”.

Modelling of sustainable development is essential, as environmental protection is regarded as a top global priority in the twenty‐first century. The basic objective of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework, named the Four Forces model for diagnosing the process of sustainable development.

Michael Porter's Five Forces model serves as a starting‐point to derive the Four Forces model. The Four Forces model, which is developed based on Back Casting technique, shows the transformation process from current unsustainable development to future sustainable development through environmental degradation, greening force and greening process. These five major components are related based on cause and effect.

The paper reveals that a clear understanding of the transformation process and their integration is necessary for successful implementation of sustainable development projects, as the transformation is a continuous process. The Four Forces model is a generic and contribute towards a richer understanding of sustainable development process.

The suggested conceptual model provides a holistic view of sustainable development and does not attempt to provide a detailed, step‐by‐step approach for implementing sustainable development in industries. This paper helps to initiate future studies in this area.

In line with Michael Porter's three generic competitive strategies, this study analysis various greening strategies and greening tools and also recommends the Green Productivity as a better tool for implementing sustainable development in industries. The model can be used as a framework for further development of a practical sustainable development system in industries.

The paper models the effect of spatial clustering on various dimensions of inter-firm competitive rivalry among port logistics firms using Porter's five forces model.

A survey-based quantitative approach is adopted to collect data from logistics firms, which are directly or indirectly dependent on the Port of Melbourne in Australia. A structural equation modelling (SEM) technique is used to examine the theorised relationships between various dimensions of inter-firm competitive rivalry and the tendency of spatial clustering of logistics firms in the vicinity of Port of Melbourne.

The results indicate that the inter-firm competitive rivalry increases significantly when logistics firms are spatially clustered. This effect is further augmented when they cluster around the port. Co-location of firms near the port tends to increase “bargaining power of buyers”, whilst indirectly affecting “competitive rivalry” via “threats of substitutes”. This indicates that co-location enhances the bargaining power of buyers through the greater availability of substitute services that in turn promotes competitive rivalry among firms. However, co-location has an insignificant effect on “barriers to entry” and “bargaining power of suppliers”. Low entry barrier thus favours high competitive rivalry among firms. Hence, this paper validates the Porter's cluster and five forces models that confirm the positive effect of port logistics clusters (PLCs) on bargaining power of buyers and indirect effect on competitive rivalry partially mediated through threats of substitutes.

This study provides empirically grounded evidence for firms to evaluate co-location decision choices and help buyers and sellers to devise business strategies to enhance inter-firm competitive rivalry and bargaining power.

This is the first systematic attempt to empirically validate Porter's five forces model in the context of PLC. Furthermore, the conceptualisation of PLC concept both as spatial and functional constructs (i.e. dependency on port) is novel. This study thus has broadened the meaning of cluster from a geographic entity to a more useful functional construct to reflect inter-firm dependencies.

The learning outcomes of this study are as follows: 1) identifying challenges confronting small businesses in emerging markets using the SWOT framework; 2) the application of the Porter’s five forces model in analysing industry dynamics for small businesses; and 3) evaluating business expansion decisions using the force field analysis framework.

Freshood Express Store was a convenience store owned and managed by Mr Cuthbert Tsikira. Freshood Express Store operated grocery convenience stores in partnership with a government-owned fuel retailer in Zimbabwe. It operated two grocery convenience stores in Harare and Bindura. Its business environment was a complex and highly competitive industry with large retailers such as OK supermarkets and TM-Pick n Pay. These large retailers enjoyed massive discounts from powerful suppliers, which enabled them to charge low prices in the market. However, Freshood Express Store, as a small business, sourced their stock from the same suppliers on a cash basis. The playing field was thus uneven. In early 2021, Freshood Express Store was offered two sites to open new establishments. These two sites were more than 200 km out of Harare, the major supplier hub for Freshood Express. In addition, large retailers had existing operations in the two proposed sites, thus adding serious competition. The dilemma confronting Mr Tsikira was as follows: Could he direct limited resources to existing establishments or new markets? He wanted a sound business analysis of the attractiveness of the proposed two markets before making a management decision to invest resources. The case focuses on the need to perform industry analysis before making strategic decisions. The use of the Porter’s five forces model and the force field analysis model to validate decisions after an industry analysis is the high point of the case.

This case study can be used to teach the environmental analysis topic in emerging markets in the small business management course.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

This paper aims to empirically investigate competition within the non-governmental organization (NGO) sector, and presents some strategic approaches to managing it. Porter’s five forces (1980) model was used as a theoretical framework to understand and quantify competition in the NGO sector, as well as to explore the differences between NGOs’ budget sizes. Traditional strategic management often fails to meet NGOs’ needs. While economization is prevalent within the NGO sector, little is known about how NGOs address competition.

An online global survey was conducted between November 2010 and May 2011. Data were collected from 1,211 NGOs that either function as consultants or work in association with the United Nations (UN). The key informants were leaders and executive managers of NGOs. The respondents’ fields of work varied from international advocacy and development (38 per cent), education and research (14 per cent), community and neighborhood (8 per cent), health (8 per cent), environment (8 per cent) and social services (7 per cent) to civil liberty (6 per cent), labor (6 per cent), culture (3 per cent), philanthropy (2 per cent) and religion (1 per cent).

The findings suggest that the NGO sector is becoming increasingly competitive. However, the data suggest that the lower and upper budget classes have different priorities and perceptions. Small NGOs (with budgets <USD250,000 and especially <USD10,000) compete more aggressively for funding, as they have less bargaining power over donors and large foundations, and face stronger competition from social entrepreneurship. This results in income reductions. Large NGOs (with budgets >USD250,000 USD and especially >USD1 million) experience increased pressure for accountability.

This research is aimed at a wide range of NGOs. The findings are based on an empirical and open survey that was held among NGOs in association with the UN. Future research should survey NGOs that are not associated with the UN to generalize the results. This may lead to contradictory or more varied results.

The findings can help NGOs adapt their strategy to cope more effectively with increasing competition in the sector. Large NGOs seem to prioritize fundraising measures and their positioning (uniqueness) through specialized knowledge. Small NGOs, on the other hand, seem to consider sharing resources, co-operation with other NGOs and co-operation with the private sector slightly more important. To enhance their competitive position, small NGOs are advised to improve their potential by concentrating on developing specific skills that are hard to imitate and to improve their fundraising measures. Finally, large NGOs could benefit from pooling their resources and collaborating with other NGOs and private organizations.

NGOs have to pursue their missions under increasing competitive pressure. This paper comprehensively assesses competition, analyzes the various facets thereof and tests these aspects’ relevance to NGOs. It furthermore proposes strategies that are more appropriate for NGOs of different sizes to cope with this competition.