Barry Ishmael

International Competitiveness: the Case of a Small Developing Country As Trinidad and Tobago Barry Ishmael

Small states and Competitive Advantage. In the debate on the evolution and development of competitive advantage, the most famous work has been that of Michael E. Porter. In The Competitive Advantage of Nations, Porter argues that national competitiveness finds its origins in geographic isolation which was the impetus for the kind and degree of innovation that characterized the nature and scope of economic and industrial activity within successful sectors in developed economies. Competitive advantage in developed nations, as argued by Porter, owes itself to a cultural pre-disposition, an acumen as it were, that became culturally imbedded in those societies over an extended period of time. This work seeks to identify what are the cultural facets that define competitive advantage within small developing states. In doing so, it identifies the link between culture and economic activity as is manifested in Trinidad and Tobago and defines the nature and scope of the Diamond and Cluster of those industrial sectors that are studied.