This paper reports research findings on the relationship between competitive methods, generic strategies, and firm performance. It was found that competitive methods in the banking industry correspond to Porter's generic strategy types and that a cost leadership strategy provides a statistically significant performance advantage over banks that are stuck‐in‐the‐middle. Alternatively, firms that used competitive methods to pursue a broad differentiation, customer service differentiation, or focus strategy were unable to realize a performance advantage over firms that are stuck‐in‐the‐middle. This study suggests that in the banking industry it may be difficult to generate superior returns using a differentiation or focus strategy.

This paper reports research on the number of competitive methods used by firms and their impact on firm performance. The research was based on a survey of banks in the New England Federal Reserve district. It was found that an increased number of competitive methods resulted in a higher level of firm performance. It was also found that there is an optimal range of competitive methods that positively impact on performance. Firms that emphasized between 16 and 20 competitive methods realized higher performance than firms below or above this optimum level. The results of this study have important theoretical, marketing, and managerial implications that are presented and discussed.

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The online homework manager (OHM) and the intelligent tutoring system (ITS) are two supplemental teaching tools available for accounting educators' use in the introductory financial accounting course. While research related to these systems is limited, prior studies find a tenuous performance advantage related to their use. To advance the literature in this area, this paper evaluates the performance benefit related to an OHM and an ITS, each employed independently as an additional study aid during the first course unit in one of two sections of the introductory financial accounting course. A third section used paper-and-pencil only and served as a control group. Results of tests on several performance measures did not identify a learning advantage associated with either the OHM or the ITS. Nor was a learning advantage identified when this study's results were compared to exam results from 14 previous semesters. Implications for accounting educators and future research directions are discussed.

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