ABSTRACT

The scope of this article is a longitudinal strategic group study with a special focus on the strategic group-performance relationship. The empirical context is the Swedish Furniture Industry, a very heterogeneous industry well suited for this type of “middle-ground study” between industry and firm levels. The research questions are finding suitable strategic dimensions to use when in a next step splitting up into different strategic groups followed by an analysis of the strategic group-performance relationship. Finally, an explanatory approach is taken with the purpose of increasing our understanding of performance differences between strategic groups. The empirical investigation is a total population study of 143 companies (micro companies excluded) and the period of analysis is 2004 up to 2017. Empirical data consist of yearly income statements, public statistics, results from two questionnaires and multiple (firm) case descriptions. The explanatory part is of a qualitative nature and points out the major differences between the strategic groups regarding environmental forces and competitive advantage. Nine strategic groups are identified and stable performance differences between groups are noted which are mainly related to different demand conditions between three customer sectors – household, institutional and B2B – but also to the mix of micro product/customer segments within these sectors.

摘要

本文的范围是纵向战略群体研究，特别关注战略群体与绩效的关系。实证背景是瑞典家具行业，这是一个非常多样化的行业，非常适合这种行业和公司层面之间的“中间地带研究”。研究问题是找到合适的战略维度，以便在下一步拆分为不同的战略组时使用，然后分析战略组与绩效的关系。最后，采用解释性方法来增加我们对战略组之间绩效差异的理解。实证调查是对 143 家公司（不包括微型公司）的总人口研究，分析时间为 2004 年至 2017 年。实证数据包括年度损益表，公共统计数据，来自两份问卷和多个（公司）案例描述的结果。解释部分是定性的，指出了战略组之间在环境力量和竞争优势方面的主要差异。确定了九个战略组，并指出了组间稳定的绩效差异，这主要与三个客户部门（家庭、机构和 B2B）之间的不同需求条件有关，但也与这些部门内微观产品/客户细分的组合有关。