Although alignment of strategic initiatives is a corporate-wide effort, considering strategy in terms of levels is a convenient way to distinguish among the various responsibilities involved in strategy formulation and implementation. A convenient way to classify levels of strategy is to view corporate-level strategy as responsible for market definition, business-level strategy as responsible for market navigation, and functional-level strategy as the foundation that supports both of these (see Table 1).

Corporate-Level Strategy

Corporate-level strategies address the entire strategic scope of the enterprise. This is the "big picture" view of the organization and includes deciding in which product or service markets to compete and in which geographic regions to operate. For multi-business firms, the resource allocation process—how cash, staffing, equipment and other resources are distributed—is typically established at the corporate level. In addition, because market definition is the domain of corporate-level strategists, the responsibility for diversification...