If the East represents the marketing manager's dream, space is the production manager's dream. In space production can take place free of natural impediments, such as gravity, and man-made constraints, such as pollution and legislation. MNCs are looking to the skies with great anticipation.
Given these trends in the external business environment, all of which call for increased globalization, MNCs are beginning to realize that "Porternomics" is bad for business. Managers are turning away from the conventional cutthroat competitive strategy preached by Michael Porter at Harvard, 1 which involved improving one's own effectiveness while eroding that of one's competitors. Instead, they are opting for the Wharton model of Perlmutter and Heenan, which calls for collaborative strategic partnerships in which cooperation and competition are balanced. 2 MNCs are realizing that cooperation and competition are not antithetical concepts. Rather, they can be complimentary concepts. The competitive zero-sum strategy taught in the leading business schools and practiced by most MNCs has almost certainly outlived its usefulness. In this new information-driven world, there is room for both competitive and cooperative behavior. Indeed, cooperative behavior is imperative, especially in the case of space-based projects, which no single MNC could accomplish alone. Information, unlike mineral and other resources, is not a finite commodity. Thus the sharing of information, unlike the sharing of physical resources, can leave all parties better off. 3
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