A Study on ‘Non-Market Strategy’: Competitive Advantage for Firms and Indirect Benefits from Government and Interest Groups.

International Management, the new and rapidly changing field, is reshaping the business environment among countries. Hence, the scope of international management has augmented in recent years in developed and developing countries. International Management not only helps firms in creating their global presence but also leverages economies all over the world.

Today, international firms or multinational corporations are able to setup their marketing offices or manufacturing subsidiaries in multiple countries to capture the domestic demands with local expertise in favourable business conditions. To perform this efficiently, firms are required to follow rules in every market in which they choose to operate because international management is driven from national business environments. Nevertheless, firms find issues related to market and non-market in fast changing business environment including government and non-government factors. The best way to deal with these issues is by highlighting how the non-market environment differs from markets and how firms get monetary benefits out of it. Usually markets issues are straight to the point, precise, uniform and predictable cause-and-effect relationships. Whereas non-markets issues are less predictable and less uniform as operational and legal processes are vary across the countries and sectors.

Hence, research in International Management, more specifically in non-market, is required to harmonize the interactions and relations of firms with various government and non-government bodies. In line with this, the present research paper is prepared which will tackle issues of firms in non-market area. The outline of the research paper will be under three main themes. Firstly, it provides an overview of international management and its impact on firms and various government bodies from non-market perspective. Secondly, theoretical relevance of non-market is depicted along with its connected factors such as government and business relations, importance of regulations and interest groups, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) etc. Thirdly, it explains how non-market approach is conceptually different from CSR activities. This research paper explains the importance of non-market strategy and its benefits.