Canada Can Compete!: Strategic Management of the Canaedian Industrial Porfolio

John Marston was a federal civil servant in Ottawa.

Joseph R. D’Cruz teaches international business and policy at the Faculty of Management Studies of the University of Toronto. Before obtaining his doctorate in business administration from the Harvard Business School, he had extensive management experience in Pakistan, Western Europe, and the United States. He has published a study about strategic management practices in Canadian subsidiaries of U.S-owned multinationals, in addition to other research interests concerning the Japanese steel industry, global commodity industries competition, and formulation of government industrial policies.

James D. Fleck is the Wallace McCutcheon Professor of Business-Government Relations at the Faculty of Management Studies of the University of Toronto. Chairman of Fleck Manufacturing and a director of several Canadian and American companies, he has served as the international president of the Young President’s Organization and has been on the faculties of the Harvard Business School, Kennedy School of Government, Keio Business School of Tokyo, Japan, the University of Western Ontario, and York University. He has served as the Executive Director and member of the Committee on Government Productivity (Ontario); Chief Executive Officer of the Office of the Premier of Ontario and Secretary of the Cabinet; Ontario coordinator of GATT and Deputy Minister of Ontario’s Department of Industry and Tourism.

This study examines the impact of Canada’s national economic strategy on the international competitiveness of its manufacturing sector. Such a strategy has to do with the economic goals of public policy, the principal policies that a nation adopts to achieve these goals, and the framework of institutions and processes used to allocate economic resources.

National economic strategies have a profound influence on the competitive international environment, particularly when the pace of international economic growth is slow.

One of the study’s principal findings is that the structure of Canada’s manufacturing sector has not changed sufficiently to cope with this new environment. Canada continues to rely on a manufacturing structure that may have been appropriate in the 1960s but is unable to cope effectively with the competitive problems of the 1980s and beyond.

This study is for the erudite student of business and policies and/or the businessman or policy-maker who can grasp its tremendous overview of Canada’s business scene and its varied problems. Charts and graphs in abundance. Truly a fantastic work.