Boeing and a dramatic change of direction
John used to teach students that Europe could never regain supremacy in civil aircraft manufacture. He was mistaken. What went wrong with Boeing’s strategy?
Size isn’t all that matters for global economies
For countries as for businesses, small scale is no barrier to success. John explains why size isn’t all that matters.
When natural resources are a curse
It is in human, rather than natural resources, that the origins of material prosperity are to be found. John describes why natural resources may be a burden rather than a blessing for some developing countries.
Big media can never be truly creative media
Is it inevitable that media industries will be dominated by conglomerates? This is the industry where scale creates more problem than its advantages
Vive la différence in the local market
A walk on Menton's marché municipal reveals how the conclusions regarding differences in productivity among countries, can be both obvious and meaningless.
Justice in trade is not simply a moral question
The trade justice day is an opportunity to reframe accurately the discussion on international trade.
Survival of the fittest not the fattest
The increased concentration of the car industry has been a commonly used, yet increasingly untrue example on the effects of globalisation. There is still an important lesson to learn though.
On John Kay’s Bookshelf – Archive page
Books that John has reviewed in the past...
High street homilies
As Marks and Spencer goes "back to basics", its story is a paradigm of what happened to British business in the last decade. Was the company's problem that it changed too little - or that it changed too much?
A corporation by any other name
Companies that trade under the family name of their founder have become increasingly rare in recent years, but firms are still concerned with their brand name. It has important functions and sends signals to customers and investors about the firm's reputation.