Strategy as economics versus economics as strategy

Abstract

Clearly, strategy and economics differ along one critical dimension: strategy is concerned descriptively with firms and normatively with the tasks of managers, whereas economics is concerned descriptively with the entire economic system and normatively with the efficiency of that system. Nonetheless, the overlap is considerable, and both management scholars and economists have ransacked economic thought for inspirations to strategic theory and managerial practice. This essay will examine and evaluate that enterprise. More interestingly, perhaps, it will suggest that perhaps the process ought to be reversed. Economics as it is now practiced would do well to learn from strategy. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Bridge to the ‘Real World’: Applied Science or a ‘Schizophrenic Tour de Force’?*

“…By no means did Porter transform the managerial task of strategy development into a ‘constrained optimization problem’ as his academic teacher Richard Caves (1980, p. 88) had in mind. Langlois (2000, p. 7) makes a similar point:…”

“…In fact, there is a long tradition in economics to retrofit empirical phenomena to market power. Coase (1972, cited after Langlois 2000, p. 6) long ago noted that ‘if an economist finds something – a business practice of one sort or another – that he does not understand, he looks for a monopoly explanation’.…”

Estratégia: notas para uma abordagem econômica e histórica

“…Mais recentemente, economistas como Freeman, Williamson, Nelson, Winter, Teece, Dunning, Langlois, Loasby, Foss, Krugman, Ghemawat, Kreps, Milgrom, Shapiro, Tirole, Pisano, Mowery, Cantwell, Dosi, Malerba e Morroni, entre outros, têm se juntado à lista dos estudiosos que incorporaram as estratégias aos seus temas de interesse e de pesquisa (Langlois, 2003;Rumelt et al, 1991;Pavitt e Steinmueller, 2002;Freeman e Soete, 1997;Loasby, 2010;Foss e Stieglitz, 2012). Deve-se destacar, entretanto, que, entre os economistas que têm dado importância a esta noção, a maior parte é de heterodoxosalguns dos quais atuando profissionalmente em importantes escolas de business, como, por exemplo, M. Porter, D. Teece, D. Mowery e G. Pisano.…”

The role of internal and external factors in the performance of Brazilian companies and its evolution between 1990 and 2003

“…Therefore, the reasons for a company's success can be found in the elements that define the market, rather than in the company itself. In the business strategy arena, this vision can be seen in the schools of strategic positioning (Hoskisson et al, 1999;Langlois, 2003;Porter, 1999). This point of view is one of the bases for Porter´s five force model (1989,1999).…”