Fractured: The New World of Competitiveness

A fascinating journey into a new paradigm, World Competitiveness, and how it gained such importance in developing global prosperity.

In World Competitiveness: Rewriting the Rules of Global Prosperity, Stephane Garelli, a world-renowned professor who has pioneered this concept, explains what World Competitiveness means and implies, and why it has become such a strategic priority for governments and businesses worldwide.

World Competitiveness gained prominence during the four decades often described as the “golden era of globalization”, stretching from China’s “open door policy” in 1978 to the onset of the COVID pandemic in 2018. Then, people could travel freely, communicate, and share ideas and experiences. Companies invested, manufactured, and traded in previously closed markets. Governments compared and enhanced their strategies. Shared prosperity was the objective.

World Competitiveness, as a field of knowledge, was not researched in libraries but experienced first-hand and on-site through numerous travels and discussions with government and business leaders, and academics. Later, it was conceptualized and theorized.

This book retraces this endeavour, from the origin of competitiveness to the modern world, which is fracturing again. It blends travel experiences, practical examples, and new theories. It is so-what, future-oriented, and above all, positive. Despite recent upheavals, the world economy is fundamentally resilient, and to paraphrase Mark Twain, “not as bad as it sounds.”

STEPHANE GARELLI is Professor Emeritus of World Competitiveness at IMD Business School and the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. He is the Founder of the World Competitiveness Center, and, among others, a former Managing Director at the World Economic Forum and the Davos Annual Meetings, and chairman of several companies.