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Research notes and communications strategic groups: A further comment

Research notes and communications strategic groups: A further comment JOHN McGEE Templeton College, Oxford, U.K. HOWARD THOMAS Department of Business Administration, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois, U.S.A. Nayyar’s comments on our paper (McGee and Thomas, 1986) are welcomed by the authors and some interesting issues are raised. We are pleased to have the opportunity to respond to these comments and to re-examine what we believe to be the key issues in the paper. We believe that a key proposition of the paper remains valid, that is, that systematic similarities and differences exist between firms as a result of ‘strategic’ resource choices (i.e. decisions to invest in assets which are often difficult and costly to imitate). Our paper attempted to establish the usefulness of intra-industry stratification and specifically to examine the analytic relevance of a level of aggregation between the ‘industry’ and the individual firm-the strategic group (SG) construct (Porter, 1979: 215; Porter, 1980: 129). We also attempted to assess the usefulness of this analytic grouping construct in understanding and interpreting the behavior of firms. For example, is the group a behavioral reference point for firms? Do groups always consist of competing firms? Nayyar’s comments certainly highlight the problematic nature of the existing research literature and http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Strategic Management Journal Wiley

Research notes and communications strategic groups: A further comment

Strategic Management Journal , Volume 10 (1) – Jan 1, 1989

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References (8)

Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
Copyright © 1989 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
ISSN
0143-2095
eISSN
1097-0266
DOI
10.1002/smj.4250100110
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

JOHN McGEE Templeton College, Oxford, U.K. HOWARD THOMAS Department of Business Administration, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois, U.S.A. Nayyar’s comments on our paper (McGee and Thomas, 1986) are welcomed by the authors and some interesting issues are raised. We are pleased to have the opportunity to respond to these comments and to re-examine what we believe to be the key issues in the paper. We believe that a key proposition of the paper remains valid, that is, that systematic similarities and differences exist between firms as a result of ‘strategic’ resource choices (i.e. decisions to invest in assets which are often difficult and costly to imitate). Our paper attempted to establish the usefulness of intra-industry stratification and specifically to examine the analytic relevance of a level of aggregation between the ‘industry’ and the individual firm-the strategic group (SG) construct (Porter, 1979: 215; Porter, 1980: 129). We also attempted to assess the usefulness of this analytic grouping construct in understanding and interpreting the behavior of firms. For example, is the group a behavioral reference point for firms? Do groups always consist of competing firms? Nayyar’s comments certainly highlight the problematic nature of the existing research literature and

Journal

Strategic Management JournalWiley

Published: Jan 1, 1989

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