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To analyze the relationship between an organization's generic strategy and its longevity.

Companies in the USA, comic book industry were classified in the Miles and Snow generic strategic types. An ANOVA test was then used to determine the relationship between these strategic types and organizational longevity (time from market entry to exit).

Results indicate a significant link between strategic type and longevity. Organizational strategy accounts for 35 percent of the variance in longevity. Companies with a defender strategy had the greatest longevity, and prospectors had the shortest.

The study is conducted in only one industry which may limit its generalizability.

This study provides insights into the role of organizational strategy on longevity, and can be used for strategic decision‐making as well as investment decisions.

This study is the first to link the Miles and Snow typology to organizational longevity. It also provides insights into the role of strategy in creative and knowledge‐based organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to take a contingency theory approach to examine how performance is affected by the relationships between the Miles & Snow strategic groupings and a variety of marketing strategy concepts, including a firm's service focus, service growth, market coverage, marketing initiative, market growth, Porter strategy, and market orientation.

Data for the study were gathered from a statewide survey among 125 chief executives of credit unions belonging to the Florida Credit Union League (FCUL). ROA figures were derived from government-mandated accounting reports in the state of Florida. ANOVA and correlation analysis were employed to analyze data.

This study shows that firms that match an aggressive Miles and Snow profile with a more aggressive approach to seven other strategy dimensions often enjoy higher market share relative to credit unions characterized by a different alignment of the various aspects of marketing strategy. The results also suggest that achieving such a fit is not relevant to maximizing a firm's ROA.

The research sample was biased toward medium to larger firms that may possess strategic resources superior to those of the smaller firms in the industry. Also, credit unions may tend to have somewhat less aggressive profit objectives compared to other institutions in the banking industry.

The findings outline to financial services executives the benefits of considering all dimensions of corporate strategy simultaneously, rather than one at a time.

The paper illustrates how aligning certain aspects of marketing strategy can boost particular performance indicators and provides insight as to what the most appropriate alignments are depending on the circumstances.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the strategy-performance relationship in a multi-industry setting for joint stock firms operating in Pakistan using Miles and Snow typology. The impact of firm size and industry on performance along with strategy is also investigated. The empirical research evidence on strategy-performance relationship for Miles and Snow typology is updated as well.

Scoring methodology is applied for identification of strategic types, including the reactor strategy. The consistency of the firms over time is also checked. Seven year archived financial data of 320 Pakistani joint stock firms from 12 industries are used for analysis. Descriptive statistics and analysis of variance is used for analysis.

Hybrid strategies are practiced by firms rather than pure strategies. The distribution of strategic types is uneven. There are mixed results for performance difference among strategic types for different industries and firm size. Defending and analyzing strategies are better than the prospecting strategies. Reactors performed better in some industries as well.

Proposed scoring methodology can be applied to identify all strategic types including reactors in the longitudinal studies. This can be replicated for other typologies or strategic group classifications. The process for identification of reactor strategy through a consistency check is a unique contribution to the literature, especially when archived financial data are used.

Our paper contrasts and validates the relevance of Miles and Snow (1978) and Robinson and Pearce (1988) strategic models, and their causal relationships with performance. The empirical study was carried out on a sample of 189 enterprises from the Spanish hospitality sector. The results confirm the relevance of both models, and the importance of the different strategies as a source to explain performance. The analysis uses structural equation models and variance analysis (ANOVA) methodologies.

To present the main findings of a study conducted in manufacturing firms in the UK to determine the applicability of generic strategies to small and medium sized firms (SMEs).

The Miles and Snow strategic orientation typology was used to examine the emphasis on the factors used to craft strategy and its subsequent impact on organizational performance. The study examined its applicability in two contrasting sectors: engineering and electronics.

Based on the responses obtained from 194 SMEs, the findings indicate that the main strategic orientation types present in this study are associated with different environment types; prospectors tend to perceive their environment as “dynamic” whereas defenders perceive their environment as “stable”. Distinct differences were found in relation to the emphasis of both orientation types on leadership, culture, strategy, and performance outcomes. Finally, the findings indicate that “prospectors” perform better than “defenders” and are twice as likely to be high performing. Smaller firms are more likely to be “prospectors” compared with firms employing over 100 staff.

The study confirms the applicability of the Miles and Snow typology to SMEs – a domain neglected in previous studies. The findings also depict the association between the attributes of the operating environment, organizational culture, leadership and strategy on both defenders and prospectors and the path to either high or low performance.

Previous studies have shown that small- and medium-sized manufacturing firms make a substantial contribution to national economies in terms of job and wealth creation (Daly & McCann, 1992; Schreyer, 1996). However, many smaller firms face unprecedented change arising from the increasingly competitive and changing environment in which they operate (Coopers and Lybrand, 1997; D’Aveni, 1994). Much of this competition often emanates from larger firms with greater resource capabilities. Firms of all sizes are increasingly turning to strategy as a means of achieving competitive advantage. Strategy research is mainly directed towards examining why firms differ in performance (Barnett & Burgelman, 1996; Schendel, 1996). Strategy has ‘undergone, in the 1990s, a major shift in focus regarding the sources of sustainable competitive advantage: from industry to firm specific effects’ (Spanos & Lioukas, 2001). This involves more than strategy formulation — it is about making choices based on competing alternatives and implementing the chosen direction using the organisational processes and systems (Shaw, Gupta, & Delery, 2002; Stopford, 2001). Other writers, such as Pettigrew and Fenton (2000), acknowledge that ‘soft’ aspects are an integral part of the evolutionary nature of strategy, and include cultural influences (Chakravarthy & Doz, 1992) and leadership (McNulty & Pettigrew, 1999).

The purpose of this paper is to link firms’ strategic archetypes as formulated by Miles and Snow (1978) to the more recent literature on organizational ambidexterity. Examining these obvious linkages, the paper also addresses how these firms address their entrepreneurial, engineering and administrative problem domains in relationship with the firm’s strategic archetype.

Data were collected from 503 firms across the US. Measures previously validated were used to collect information related to the strategic archetype as well as the three problem domains. Multiple discriminant and regression analyses were used to test the hypotheses.

Most of the hypotheses relating the entrepreneurial (exploration and exploitation), engineering (radical and incremental innovation) and administrative problem (adaptation and alignment) to the four strategic archetypes (defender, prospector, analyzer and reactor) were supported. Additionally, the authors found that the firms that had the closest alignment along the three problem domains outperformed the other firms.

Although the Miles and Snow typology has received considerable research attention, the obvious links with more contemporary research on organizational ambidexterity has been neglected. Through this integration, with more recent key strategic management concepts, this paper shows the utility and current relevance of the Miles and Snow archetypes.

Strategic typologies are applied to investigate strategy–performance relationship. The typology of Miles and Snow (1978) is one of them, but the methodology applied for identification of strategic types for archival financial data is questionable on three grounds: no standard procedure for categorization of strategic types; identification of reactor strategy is always ignored; and the behavior of firms’ strategic orientation over time is under-researched. Besides, the assumptions that viable strategies are expected to perform equally well, outperform reactors and distributed evenly are not overwhelmingly supported. The purpose of this paper is to address these issues.

A refined scoring methodology is developed and used for identification of all strategic types, including reactors, by investigating the consistency of the firms over time. Empirical analysis using seven years of data of 121 joint stock firms of the textile sector in Pakistan is performed to test the assumptions regarding presence, distribution and performance of strategic types.

There is significant difference in the distribution of the strategic types. Pure defenders and pure prospectors are non-existing, whereas a reasonable number of reactors are present. Overall difference in performance among strategies is generally insignificant and viable strategies outperformed reactors. The effect of size on performance is also insignificant. However, there is variation in performance of strategies with variation in size. Strategy is the better predictor of performance than size.

The transition of strategic stance of the firms over time and the identification of reactor strategy from archived financial data are the important outcomes of the proposed methodology. The proposed methodology can be used for any longitudinal study for identification of all possible strategic types and can also be used for any other typological research.

The aim of this article is to construct a performance evaluation framework that can be employed in companies to enhance their business operations and strengthen their financial advantage in the current environment. To validate the approach, a case example has been included to assess the practicality and validity of this approach when applied in a real environment.

This study focuses on an important part of the strategic planning process: internal scrutiny and environmental (external) scanning, in which an evaluation of company performance is divided into two stages by using network DEA and the cross-efficiency approach. In addition, this article employs Miles and Snow's typology for classifying the strategies used by companies.

The analytical results show that the proposed framework can be useful for companies seeking to evaluate which strategies may be the most appropriate, based on Miles and Snow's typology, to effectively reallocate limited resources.

The evaluation in this study only uses financial data and does not take other nonfinancial indicators into consideration.

This research provides value by classifying each company included in the study in terms of its capability and financial efficiency according to Miles and Snow's system of strategy classification. Second, an internal and external performance measuring framework is constructed. Finally, some propositions for top management are provided by analyzing the financial advantages of using a performance evaluation framework that can help top management make decisions more objectively.

The purpose of this paper is to study the strategic process of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) including strategic reference points (SRP) (Fiegenbaum et al., 1996).

The paper identifies the strategic positioning of SMEs (Lavie and Fiegenbaum, 2000, 2003) according to the importance that their managers give to internal and external SRP. Their influence on strategic types (Miles and Snow, 1978) and performance are analysed. This study uses information, from 83 SMEs in the Canary Islands (Spain), collected with a questionnaire.

SMEs are primarily adaptive firms followed by narcissist ones: numerous SMEs focus their attention on internal SRPs. SMEs strategic positioning determines their strategic orientations to a much lesser extent than their characteristics (sector, size and age) do. The results show that product specialisation, the only difference between adaptive SMEs and narcissist and amorphous ones, is not evident in their performance.

Decision makers and institutions should reflect about the maturity of the strategic process and the adaptation dynamic of SMEs. The need for SMEs to focus on their external vision should be highlighted.

The study includes SRP in the strategic process of SMEs. It contributes to the literature by drawing a map of the strategic positioning of SMEs, based on their SRPs (Lavie and Fiegenbaum (2000, 2003) and by linking the strategic positioning of SMEs with their strategic types. It also has the value of applying the Rasch Rating Scale Model (Andrich, 1978, 1988).