Oslo, Norway

Business – Strategy

Master's
Table of contents

Business – Strategy at BI Norwegian Business School

Language: EnglishStudies in English
Subject area: economy and administration
University website: www.bi.no/

Definitions and quotes

Business
Business is the activity of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling goods or services. Simply put, it is "any activity or enterprise entered into for profit. It does not mean it is a company, a corporation, partnership, or have any such formal organization, but it can range from a street peddler to General Motors." The term is also often used colloquially (but not by lawyers or public officials) to refer to a company, but this article will not deal with that sense of the word.
Strategy
Strategy (from Greek στρατηγία stratēgia, "art of troop leader; office of general, command, generalship") is a high-level plan to achieve one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty. In the sense of the "art of the general", which included several subsets of skills including "tactics", siegecraft, logistics etc., the term came into use in the 6th century CE in East Roman terminology, and was translated into Western vernacular languages only in the 18th century. From then until the 20th century, the word "strategy" came to denote "a comprehensive way to try to pursue political ends, including the threat or actual use of force, in a dialectic of wills" in a military conflict, in which both adversaries interact.
Strategy
Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war?
The Bible: II Kings, 18:20
Strategy
The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.
Michael Porter, "What is strategy?." In: Harvard Business Review, November (1996). p. 70
Strategy
Those oft are stratagems which errors seem,
Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream.
Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism (1709), Part I, line 177
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