Eduard’s Doctorate in Business Administration at Harvard and his presence on the Harvard-IESE Joint Committee forged a life-long relationship between Harvard Business School and Eduard. In fact, he was the driving force behind the re-launching of the Harvard Club of Spain, that he chaired for many years.
His relationship with Professor Porter resulted in the cross fertilization of ideas across the Atlantic, first in the field of strategy and later in the development of the practical applications of “The Competitive Advantage of Nations” (Free Press, 1990), that led to the present day cluster based competitiveness strategies.
Eduard was instrumental in these applications. Together with Professor Josep Faus, he convinced the Government of Catalonia to become one of the pioneers in applying cluster methodology, and developing it. The term “micro-cluster” can be attributed to him, which refers to the very focused clusters in the same industry that were found in Catalonia.
Some of the first cases on clusters (“The Catalan Leather Industry”, and “Antmobel”) were developed by Harvard Business School teams under Eduard’s supervision. They are still being used all over the world to teach the relationship between clusters and strategy.
Recognition of that contribution came in the chapter in “On Competition” (HBS Press, 2008) dedicated to clusters, in which a featured best practice example was his work in Catalonia.
Eduard was such a believer in the cluster methodology that he founded, with Josep Faus and Emiliano Duch, The Cluster Competitiveness Group (Competitiveness.com), a specialized consultancy promoting competitive clusters. This organization is now a staff of 60 professionals exporting those ideas across the world.
All Eduard’s work on the development of cluster-based competitiveness resulted in the creation, in 2005, of a dedicated research center at IESE, the International Center for Competitiveness, established in collaboration with the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at Harvard.
The ICC is co-directed by Prof. Subirà. During his tenure as Regional Minister of Industry, Energy, Trade and Tourism in Catalonia, Prof. Subirà was a pioneering practitioner of the cluster methodology, and established quickly its reputation worldwide.
Even if Eduard did not live to see it, the III Barcelona Clusters Summer School, which took place last July at the Barcelona campus, was a great success with professors from six countries and 60 participants from 25 countries, and is a tribute to his memory.
Unfortunately, the course is not the only fruit of his work that he will not be able to see. The European Union has awarded his research center the leadership of the European Cluster Excellence Initiative, a consortium of the 13 key players in Europe that will work during the next three years to drive excellence in cluster development and training materials.
In Eduard’s memory we will continue to improve and expand on this work in the years to come.
Emiliano Duch
Michael E. Porter
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