Introduction: perspectives on Porter

Introduction. Relevance of Strategy research: focus on Michael Porter's contributions Strategy is a fascinating field of enquiry, both for managers looking for a sustainable competitive advantage and for academic researchers looking for the reasons behind superior firm performance. Strategy can be a fascinating field of mutual learning as well, if practitioners and researchers communicate with each other, exchange ideas and findings and try to understand each other's perspective. Such a crossfertilization can improve the relevance of strategy theory and of the managerial instruments grounded in it. From time to time we, as strategy researchers, need to assess the relevance of our research by stepping back and asking ourselves if we are on track and whether practitioners still share our findings. Or as Hamel and Prahalad (1996: 242) recently asked: "So, just how relevant is the corpus of knowledge we call 'strategic management' to the new information economy?".