RESEARCH ON STRATEGIC GROUPS: PROGRESS AND PROGNOSIS^[1]

Abstract

The progress made in strategic groups research is evaluated by identifying its relevance and importance to the field of strategic management. A classificatory scheme is developed using two dimensions: the operationalization of strategy; and the approach to group development. A review framework incorporating key analytical dimensions is drawn up to (a) develop a taxonomy for classifying the available empirical research on strategic groups; (b) assess the research and identify important summary patterns and (c) develop specific research directions from a stategic management perspective.

Linking Employee Stakeholders to Environmental Performance: The Role of Proactive Environmental Strategies and Shared Vision

“…Second, by conducting this study in a multi-industry setting, we had to sacrifice industry-specific measures for generalisability, thus possibly excluding interesting aspects that would add to the understanding of the relationship between employee stakeholder integration and environmental performance in certain contexts. At the same time, a multi-industry setting can also be considered a strength of our study, as results hold across industries, and hence are more generalisable (Thomas and Venkatraman, 1988;Schmalensee, 1989).…”

Research on Competitive Dynamics: Recent Accomplishments and Future Challenges

“…In the late 1980s and early 1990s, several articles questioned the existence of strategic groups (Barney & Hoskisson, 1990;Hatten & Hatten, 1987;Thomas & Venkatraman, 1988). One concern centered on the lack of theoretical explanation for how groups arise.…”

A set-theoretic approach to organizational configurations

“…However, evidence on the relationship between configurations and performance has been equivocal. While some reviews of previous studies cast doubt on the existence of such a relationship (Barney & Hoskisson, 1990;Hatten & Hatten, 1987;Thomas & Venkatraman, 1988), a meta-analysis of configurational studies by Ketchen et al (1997) nevertheless suggests that configuration membership does predict performance. Other research has proposed that the inability to find a reliable link between configurations and performance may be due to insufficient statistical power in previous studies (Ferguson & Ketchen, 1999).…”