Business Policy or Strategic Management: A Broader View for an Emerging Discipline. Paper No. 371.

This paper suggests that Business Policy is generally thought of as a course, not a field of study, and that such thinking is a limitation to its development. A broader view of Business Policy is needed. We call that view Strategic Management. Our purpose is to first indicate the common view of Policy and then to show that Strategic Management, a wider view, not only accommodates the conventional purpose awarded Policy, but it can also facilitate development of a new, burgeoning field of study based on empirical research. Finally, several teaching issues raised by this wider view of Policy are indicated. Nothing we have said denies the need for the Business Policy course or suggests its replacement as the central core of Strategic Management. However, if we are to view Strategic Management as more than a course, as having a wider purpose than simply helping to integrate knowledge received elsewhere, and as an area worthy of study in its own right, then there must be coursework in place and available for t...