The global institutional changes implemented under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2005 were expected to challenge the existing sources of competitive advantage in the Indian pharmaceutical and textile industries and thus India's trade position in international markets. These challenges acquired strategic significance at the national level given the historical importance of the two industries to India's attainment of various socio-economic objectives. The above-quoted extracts from the annual reports of the respective ministries of the Government of India fifteen years later suggest that each industry adequately adapted to the global institutional change and was able to maintain or increase its share in global trade, while fulfilling the social goals, that is, employment generation in the textile industry and supply of affordable drugs in the pharmaceutical industry. How were these two industries able to adapt to and cope with externally imposed changes that amounted to tectonic shifts in the rules of the game? Studying similarities and differences in the strategic trajectories of these two very different industries in response to global changes was the primary objective of the current book.

The main argument of this book is that coping with such momentous changes triggered at the global level required a multi-level strategic response. Global institutional change necessitated the search for new organisational capabilities by Indian firms to catch up with global competitors and successfully compete in international markets.