Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is becoming a common strategy within medium and large companies, which explains the growing number of studies and disciplines focusing on it. One stream of research examines the effects of CSR on a firm's performance, such as its market value, suggesting that the financial performance outcomes of responsible corporate behavior may vary depending on firm-specific and industry-related factors. This study attempts to explain why the impact of CSR initiatives may be different and/or more firm performance that is higher for service firms than for product-based firms. As for practical implications, these findings suggest that CSR may be an especially valuable tool for differentiation in the service context.

No abstract

Our study examines asymmetric rivalry within and between strategic groups defined according to the size of their members. We hypothesize that, owing to several forms of group‐level effects, including switching costs and efficiency, strategic groups comprising large firms expect to experience a large amount of retaliation from firms within their group and accommodation from the group comprising smaller firms. Small firms, on the other hand, expect to experience a small amount of retaliation from the group comprising large firms and no reaction from the other firms in their group. We estimate the effect of group‐level strategic interactions on firm performance. Our analysis reveals that the rivalry behavior within and between groups is asymmetric, which supports the dominant‐fringe relation between firms, as described in our hypothesis. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

SpainOur study examines how, in a given industry, rivalry functions within strategic groups defined according to the size of their member firms and how this rivalry affects performance. We hypothesize that, owing to several forms of group-level effects including market power, efficiency, differentiation, and multimarket contact, strategic groups that comprise smaller firms will exhibit both increased rivalry and decreased performance compared with strategic groups that comprise larger firms. We test our hypotheses by estimating the effect of group-level strategic interactions (i.e., conjectural variations) on firm performance. Ultimately, our analysis of empirical data on loans in the Spanish banking industry demonstrates that increased rivalry and decreased performance indeed characterizes firms belonging to a strategic group that comprises smaller firms. 1289 3 This is a contingency explanation of rivalry: internal fit (i.e., strategy and structure or strategy and organization activities) and external fit (i.e., organizational structure and contextual environment or strategy and environmental needs) enhance firm performance (Peteraf and Reed, 2007). factors that explain intragroup rivalry, wherein group-level effects determine firm performance.

No abstract