Delineating the scope of corporate, business, and marketing strategy

Abstract

The conceptualization of strategy in terms of corporate, business, and functional level strategies has gained wide acceptance in the strategic management and marketing literatures. Under this schema, strategy at each level is presumed to have a well defined domain, and key decisions associated with each level are presumed to be made by decision makers at that level. While the above hierarchial conceptualization of strategy does have its merits, as pointed out in this paper, when used as a basis for defining and delimiting the scope of corporate, business and marketing strategy, and specifying the locus of strategic decision making within organizations, the overlapping nature of these strategic domains and the multiplicity of environmental and organizational factors that may lead to a divergence between the locus of strategy and locus of decision making should be recognized.