Emergent patterns of strategy, environment and performance in a transition economy

Abstract

Insights from the resource dependence approach, dynamic fit, and strategic choice theories are used to explore the strategies adopted by Chinese enterprises, their settings, and the relationship between strategy, environment, and performance. Results from 959 firms indicate that respondents operating under 'more marketized' institutional settings tend to locate themselves in more munificent environments and place greater emphasis on meeting customer needs. Firms in China do not trade off one strategic direction against another, and certain strategy/environment coalignments have significant implications for performance. In particular, performance is better in more marketized and munificent environments and amongst firms who adopt an 'aggressive' strategic posture.

Environmental Uncertainty as a Contingent Factor of Business Strategy Choice Decision: Introducing an Alternative Measurement of Uncertainty

“…Companies constantly confront environmental uncertainty, consisting of three components, namely competitive uncertainty, market uncertainty and technological uncertainty (Bourgeois, 1985;Homburg, 2002;Kreiser and Marino, 2002;Davies and Walters, 2004;Gils et al, 2004;DeSarbo et al, 2005). This study transforms those three components into a single index of environmental uncertainty in order to measure uncertainty more objectively.…”

Do Political Connections Buffer Firms from or Bind Firms to the Government? A Study of Corporate Charitable Donations of Chinese Firms

“…In contrast, highly competitive industries are more open to market competition and less controlled by the government. Firms in such industries are more conscious of committing resources to the market rather than catering to the government to survive competition (Davies and Walters 2004). As a result, we expect the following:…”

Assessing the importance of managerial accuracy of perceptions

“…Numerous studies have examined the link between Miles and Snow's strategy types and performance (Hambrick 1983;Zajac and Shortell 1989), as well as the moderating effects of these strategy types on the influence of environment, or organizational structure, behavior, processes, and capabilities (Davies and Walters 2004;Olson et al 2005;Slater et al 2006). The various empirical studies that apply Miles and Snow's model have strongly supported this model in different environments (Zahra and Pearce 1990).…”