In a sample of 2980 firm-year observations collected from three industries over the five-year period during the Russian economic crisis of 2013–2017, we demonstrate the relative effectiveness of conservative and aggressive strategies for technological leadership in affecting firm performance. Both the conservative strategy aimed at minimizing firm inputs per the set volume of outputs and the aggressive strategy aimed at maximizing the outputs per the set volume of inputs affect performance positively. Of the two alternatives, the aggressive strategy clearly outperforms the conservative one during times of crisis. Additionally, without a clear commitment to either of the strategies, firms stand to lose. We offer a novel way of assessing a firm’s strategy based on the secondary data utilized in this manuscript that can be implemented by the future research.

在2013-2017年俄罗斯经济危机期间的五年中，从三个行业收集的2980个公司年度观察样本中，我们证明了技术领先的保守和激进战略在影响公司绩效方面的相对有效性。旨在使每单位产出固定数量的公司投入最小的保守策略和旨在使每单位投入固定量的产量最大化的激进策略都对绩效产生积极影响。在这两种选择中，积极进取的策略在危机时期明显优于保守策略。此外，如果没有明确承诺采用任何一种策略，企业都将蒙受损失。