INTERVIEW WITH PROFESSOR DAVID BACH

In an interview, David Bach, professor of Strategy and Economic Environment at Spain's Instituto de Empresa (IE,) Business School, and director of its Center on Nonmarket Strategy, talked about the concept of nonmarket strategy, the IE Center's approach, and the challenges faced by firms today. According to Bach, the problem with many if the existing approaches to managing the social and political aspects of business is that they are often compartmentalized in terms of the business environment. At the Center on Nonmarket Strategy they try to take a holistic approach. The business environment of the firm consists of two pieces: the market environment and the nonmarket environment. In the nonmarket environment, what influences political processes is information, much more than money. Many people are more distrustful of big companies, managers and markets than they ever were before, so the first thing that companies must try to do is regain the public's trust. Businesses cannot achieve this by focusing on business as usual. Increasing corporate social responsibility would be a big help.