John Kay

The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 was the defining economic event of our lifetime. It marked the end of the most extensive controlled experiment in the history of social sciences – the division of Germany into two economic zones, one centralised and planned, the other a market economy. After forty years, the gap in living standards between the two was so extreme that the experiment was terminated.

The twentieth century would give small states the opportunity to achieve prosperity on the basis of narrow specialisation in a global economy. Such states would also benefit from the greater capacity of homogenous communities to reconcile economic dynamism with social cohesion. As a result, some of the small states of Western Europe would, in the course of the twentieth century, move from being among the poorest countries in the world to be among the richest.

My primary purpose is to begin a debate here in Scotland, a debate which I intend to take forward in the Council of Economic Advisers, and which I hope Reform Scotland and others who are concerned with the business and politics of Scotland will also have an opportunity to take forward.

Strange as it may seem, overcoming geographic obstacles, winning decisive battles or meeting global business targets are the type of goals often best achieved when pursued indirectly. This is the idea of Obliquity. Oblique approaches are most effective in difficult terrain, or where outcomes depend on interactions with other people.

Twenty years after it all began, the meaning of privatisation is now clearer. Privatised businesses have fared better than nationalised ones but most have not thrived in the private sector. And the plc model does not work for monopoly services.

The notion that effective management and free intellectual inquiry are incompatible derives from the belief that if you give people authority to fix Iris Murdoch’s bookshelves they will soon start telling her what to write.   This fear should not be discounted completely  – there are people like that – but there are also ample means [...]

The interrelationship of technology, economic advance, and social and political systems, has many ramifications. The last ten years, in economic terms, have constituted an American decade. But the way in which the American decade comes to an end is probably the most important issue for the world economy today.

John resigned as Director of Oxford University’s Said Business School in July 2000. A year and half later, he breaks his silence to talk about some of the frustrations of attempting to help the university face up to the challenges of the twenty first century.

Regulated businesses face almost all of the strategy issues which confront conventional firms, and some additional ones that are specific to their own environment. As deregulation spreads across Europe, the gap between those firms which handle these specific issues effectively and those which respond to regulation and regulatory changes with hostility, complacency or defeatism will widen rapidly.

The resource based view of strategy has a coherence and integrative role that places it well ahead of other mechanisms of strategic decision making. After thirty years or so, the subject of strategy is genuinely acquiring what can be described as a paradigm – to use the most overworked and abused term in the study of management.