ABSTRACT
I have claimed that a Realist approach can offer a superior perspective on business strategy. What then is Realism? This chapter will introduce the Realist position, developed particulariy by Roy Bhaskar. It is Bhaskar's general philosophical foundations - augmented by the social psychology of Harre and the sociology of Giddens - that will form the basis for my accounts of strategie choice that follow in later chapters. The significance of Realism, I shall argue, lies in its conception of real social structures as essential to both human actors' intrinsic potential for agency and their extern al capacity to actualize this potential. To bring out the distinctive value of this Realist approach, let me begin by recapping the main arguments of the two last chapters.
