Applying Strategy Group Concept to Program Providers(PP) Industry

Abstract

Using strategy group theory, this thesis reviewed the status of program providers analysis and the performances it has made so far, and sought measures to improve its limitations. The constraint of program providers analysis based on existing concept of strategy group is that the strategy group was derived from the statistics, and therefore only applied the characteristics of program provider's channels to the analysis, on account of which a systematic and sophisticated classification as well as generalization of strategy or strategy group were hard to obtain. Moreover, the PP strategy variables used to be selected at the firm level and business level, and in relation with resource and competition scope. In future, more appropriate procedure should be followed to obtain objectivity in selecting variables to avoid controversy over intentionality.The measures in this thesis to improve the study of PP strategy group can be summarized as follows: firstly analysis of variables for strategy group classification should be made to single out key variables which are to be classification criteria. Secondly, variables are to be cross-checked by industry experts to increase generalizability. Thirdly, proxy variables should be sublated, and strategy group model which enables the reflection of subsistent properties of PP industry, and the cognitive perception of the executives(CEO) needs to be established. Fourthly, the concepts of mobility barrier and isolating mechanism should be applied to the classification criteria of strategy group to reveal the gap of performance between different strategy groups. Lastly, chronicle study on PP strategy group should be done to perceive the dynamic changes of PP strategy group.■ keyword :|Strategy Group|Performance|Mobility Barrier|Program Provider(PP)|