Nikolas Glover

2026 London

Abstract: The Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD (BIAC) is a seldom studied yet influential private organisation. As the representative of business at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), it is involved in all the Organisation’s projects. Despite a rapidly growing literature on business interest organisations, BIAC is absent from almost all accounts (Ballor & Pitteloud, 2023; Rollings 2021, Pitteloud & al 2022). Filling a notable gap in research, this paper answers the question: how did BIAC become the influential international business association (IBA) it is today? What was the rationale behind its creation, and what distinguished it from other IBAs? Examining the background to BIAC’s creation in 1962, this paper shows how decolonization, organized Labour and the Cold War, prompted the creation of a new, transatlantic business organisation with a distinct identity of representing the industrialised Global North. Through the archives of Swedish industrialist and banker Marcus Wallenberg Jr., we highlight the challenges faced by this small but well-connected association, and its founders, at the outset. We also analyse the relations between BIAC and other IBAs, arguing that BIAC provided a crucial forum for business representatives from the world’s richest countries inbetween the International Chamber of Commerce the International Employers’ Organisation and national business organisations. It was this unique position that it successfully utilized to affirm its relevance on a global stage. Engaging with recent research on business associations, their relations with international organizations and their impact on global governance, this paper looks at the BIAC as an important – and hitherto overlooked – example of how private economic actors have successfully navigated multi-faceted power relations between business, IOs and multinational corporations during a period of rapid geopolitical change.