THE COMPARISON OF NINE-FACTOR MODEL AND DIAMOND MODEL: APPLICATION FOR THE CZECH REPUBLIC, SLOVAKIA AND HUNGARY

Abstract

The concept of macroeconomic competitiveness became a phenomenon during last decades. Its controversial nature arouses attention of many people all over the world. It is impossible to find a generally accepted definition of national competitiveness as well as the way how to measure and compare competitiveness of countries. This contribution will discuss two models dealing with macroeconomic competitiveness, the original Porter´s diamond model and the nine-factor model. Besides methodology, differences and similarities of these models we will be interested in how results of both the models differ. The main goal of the contribution is the identification of differences between the diamond model and the nine-factor model. For practical application of both the models we chose three countries on different development level out of Central Europe: the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. Introduction The competitiveness of nations is a very controversial and discussed theme during last decades. It is not possible to find one and only definition of competitiveness on the macroeconomic level. Besides, some economists consider the concept of national competitiveness as nonsense. Thereafter it is very difficult to find a way, how to measure competitive ability of countries. We could mention many diverse definitions of competitiveness and find many indices to measure it. This contribution deals with one known approach to rating competitiveness of nations and its modification. The well-known approach is a model presented by Michael Porter called diamond model. Porter´s name is probably rather connected with company strategy, but he also contributed to macroeconomic competitiveness theory.