JUNIOR SEMINAR: Business Strategy in the Global Political Economy

How should one formulate and integrate market and nonmarket strategies in a complex global economy? What are the implications for firm strategies of the anti-globalization backlash? Most business strategy courses focus on the organization of the firm and analysis of the market environment within which companies operate. Yet an important element in pursuing competitive advantage is the ability of a firm to mold or influence the nonmarket business environment—the rules, regulations, domestic institutions, and international institutions that define the context of the market in which they operate.
Many actors influence the nonmarket environment including governments, international organizations, the media, non-governmental organizations, and a host of activist groups. This nonmarket environment often determines profit and loss opportunities for firms in many industries including biotechnology, telecommunications, the automobile industry, the energy sector, and consumer electronics—to name only a few. Firms that take the nonmarket environment as “given” often fall behind their competitors, despite having developed successful strategies for the market in which they operate.
This course focuses on the development of tools to analyze the nonmarket environment of business and considers the policymaking process in the United States, Europe, Japan, China, India, and as well as other emerging markets. Topics include anti-globalization, domestic political institutions and policymaking, corporate political strategies, government regulation and deregulation, industrial policy, trade policymaking, national security, and international institutions.

Students will write a paper of approximately 4,500 words that explores a company’s efforts to deal with a nonmarket problem with appropriate market and nonmarket strategies and tactics.