Business Studies: The Global Dynamics of Business-State Relations

This article takes the position that strategy and policy must be seen as complementary because they provide a different lens to look on the future as the holism through which current resources in the firm are developed and allocated. It starts with time as the key variable to consider, and sketches a stylized survey of how corporate strategy thinking has evolved, with a view to teasing out the key tensions that businesses encounter when operating in a semi-integrated world market and polity. It then looks closer at the relation between corporate policies and the diversity of states, discusses the evolution of the global state and market system, and spells out some of the key challenges facing corporate leaders making strategies and policies to both shape and understand the future.