A review of empirical research on dynamic competitive strategy, страница 3

We then looked at several reviews of the competitive strategy and dynamics literature done previously (e.g. Fahey and Christensen 1986; Ginsberg and Venkatraman 1985; Ketchen et al. 2004; Rajagopalan and Spreitzer 1993), and also read a number of the studies that were identified in those reviews. During this process, we listed possible search terms, such as ‘strategic alignment’, ‘organizational contingency’ and ‘strategic adaptation’. We eventually narrowed the list down to six keywords that were then used for a computerized search (Brynjolfsson 1993) of article abstracts in the Business Source Complete database to find potentially relevant articles published between 1986 and 2005. We chose 1986 because only a small part of strategy research done before that date was dynamic (Bergh 1993), and because what was done before then had already been extensively reviewed (Fahey and Christensen 1986; Ginsberg 1988; Ginsberg and Venkatraman 1985).

The database search identified 1293 separate articles from 1774 keyword hits. We read the abstract of each article, looking for an indication that a longitudinal analysis was performed on an aspect of competitive strategy. If we believed this was the case, we did a cursory reading of the article itself. In actuality, this process yielded 137 articles with longitudinal studies pertaining to competitive strategy (see Table 1 for a summary of the results of this process). The final step was to scan selectively the reference lists of the articles, looking for any indication that our keywords, or the journals we selected, might have led to systematic biases, but could find no evidence that this was the case.

Review Framework

Following previous reviews, we relied on an organizing framework to structure the existing literature. In order to develop such a framework, we followed a sequential two-step process. In the first step, we consolidated classification schemes from the fields of competitive strategy/strategic change (e.g. Fahey and Christensen 1986; Ginsberg and Venkatraman 1985; Ketchen et al. 2004; Rajagopalan and Spreitzer 1993) in order to identify the relevant linkages between (1) antecedents to competitive strategic actions, (2) strategic actions and adaptations as the focus of the review and (3) strategy outcomes. The initial classification schemes were adapted to a dynamic context and consistently refined during the course of the review. As a result of this first step, Figure 1 summarizes the relevant antecedent, competitive strategy and outcome linkages.

Figure 1. A framework for research on dynamic competitive strategy. 1 рисунок 1 статья

The goal of competitive strategy is to find the optimal match between environmental and organizational contingencies (Zajac et al. 2000). It is logical then that these variables are seen as antecedents to dynamic competitive strategy. Environmental contingencies include the historical evolution and the current values of the technological, regulatory, competitive and general environmental contexts. The technological context refers to the characteristics and development of the technologies that a firm relies on to conduct its business (Tripsas 1997). The regulatory context includes aspects of legislation, regulation and deregulation in the industry (Barr and Huff 1997; McCutchen 1993). The competitor action and competitive landscape subcategory encompasses not only the competitive activities of a firm and its direct competitors, but also the structural conditions for such behavior, such as the strategic group structure of the industry (Smith et al. 1997), entry into, and exit from, relevant product markets (Smith and Wilson 1995), and the degree of multipoint competition (Gimeno and Woo 1996). Finally, general environmental characteristics include the stage in the product life cycle (Mascarenhas and Aaker 1989), environmental dynamism (Fombrun and Ginsberg 1990), and a broad range of other conditions and uncertainties with which a firm must contend.