Contingency Relations Of Strategic Direction And Performance Study

"How to get and sustain competitive advantage" is a fundamental issue in the strategic management field. Contemporary strategic management researches never go away from it. However, two theories of them attract most attention and form systemic views, which are positioning theory and resource-based theory. The former is the prominent works of Michael E. Porter, while the latter is called as a standard theory about resources of competitive advantage. The two theories hold opposite views on "which are resources of competitive". The positioning theory puts special focus on industry structure, whereas resource-based theory takes particular attention on resources a firm owns. The differences between the two theories arose long lasting debate on which are the true resources of competitive advantage. What's more, the resolution of the debate will implicate the theoretic value and practical significance of the two theories.Conventional wise told us that both industry structure and firm resources have important impact on firm's strategy and performance. Thus, it guides people questioning the necessity of the debate and implicates the reasons why there is little consensus on the debate. Accordingly, the author argue that it is more important to study the issue that on what condition the theories will be more significant than simply compare which is more significant. Based on the view, the dissertation provides the concept of strategy orientation based on detailed comparison of the two theories, and holds that firm has alternative choice of two strategy orientations based on the two theories respectively. Further, the author presents two research questions: (1) does these two strategy orientations exist in practice? The question will prove that both theories deserve theoretical and practical value. (2) under which strategic conditions do the two theories be of paramount importance for firm to get higher performance and competitive advantage? Research on the question will guide people view the two theories from contingent perspective, which help researches understand the conditions the theories work and help managers how to apply the theories. The paper first analyzes the views of the two theories on resources of competitive advantage, and on content of strategic analysis procedure, which provides basis of identification of the two strategy orientations. In addition, data are collected through questionnaire survey, and analyzed to show that the two strategy orientations based on the two theories exist widely. In...