Somehow, manufacturing doesn’t seem to grow naturally into a potential field of distinction for IIMA as other areas an uphill struggle. During the 1980s, the author found himself informally engaged in precisely such an effort. While much has been achieved there is still a long way to go before...

In the national quest for competitive advantage two basic forces may be crucial. On the one hand, progressive corporations “invest in inimitability” (the so-called institutional effect). Simultaneously, in the interests of time compressed national progress, policy makers try to facilitate...

The young Japanese executive is a product of his socio-economic environment specifically the Japanese educational system. Thus the paper first highlights the key features of the Japanese school and higher education system, touching briefly upon the scope and extent of post-graduate management...

In this paper, we introduce the concept of mega faculties, corporate abilities to change focal faculties from time to time over the long term. Since it is a tentative concept we propose a case discussion based approach to learn about it suing core competence or core capabilities as a proxy for...

In the early 1990s the concept of the firm’s focal faculties came into vogue. It helped to explain the phenomenon of innovative international competition. In the new civil aviation policy of the Indian government we have an interesting situation where there is some scope (perhaps small) of...

Given the criticality of civil aviation policy for developing countries such as India and China and developed countries such as Japan, Britain and the United States, we review global airline competition to shed light on the seemingly varied approaches adopted by different countries. What are the...

There is indubitably more to the sources of sustained competitive advantage of corporations than meets the eye. Among the most promising of these are the focal faculties of the firm, the areas of expertise ingrained in organizations over long periods of time. If properly developed and managed...

The new civil aviation policy may be controversial because it marks a historic shift from potential intra industry sources of foreign investment to trans industry sources (as distinct from purely financial consortia). This sets the stage for observing the unfolding of focal faculty theory in...