Getting down to business
When Washington’s newest lawmakers head to the capital in January, the pressing issues they will face include a stagnant economy and stubborn unemployment numbers. But as two Harvard Business School (HBS) professors warned a group of incoming congressional freshmen on Thursday, it would be a big mistake to separate those concerns from the broader and increasingly urgent problem of America’s waning competitiveness in the global world of business. “Our problem is not so much what we’ve done but what we haven’t done,” Michael E. Porter, the Bishop William Lawrence University Professor, told the group of 47 gathered at Harvard Kennedy School for a crash course in major policy issues. “Other countries are very serious about driving improvements in competitiveness. … Part of our problem is that we’re just not moving fast enough.” The presentation by Porter and Jan W. Rivkin, co-directors of the HBS-led U.S. Competitiveness Project, was one of more than...