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A contingency view of strategy choice problems: Experiences of Swedish companies in Germany
Author(s) -
Pehrsson Anders
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
strategic change
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.527
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 1099-1697
pISSN - 1086-1718
DOI - 10.1002/jsc.4240020205
Subject(s) - contingency theory , contingency , order (exchange) , subsidiary , marketing , product (mathematics) , business , competition (biology) , industrial organization , exploratory research , standardization , empirical research , build to order , economics , microeconomics , computer science , management , multinational corporation , ecology , linguistics , philosophy , geometry , mathematics , finance , sociology , anthropology , biology , operating system , epistemology , production (economics)
The contingency view of business strategy has become popular in research. Differences in strategy problems between companies mainly offering separate products and systems of products are, however, less understood. This article presents an exploratory empirical study that seeks differences between the company categories. Using a cross‐sectional methodological approach and multivariate analysis, the study focuses on Swedish subsidiaries in Germany. The companies offer metal goods, machines and electrotechnical products. According to the results of the study, choices of product qualities are more complex for ‘system’ companies. The balance between customization of a system and standardization in order to reach reproducibility is a dominating problem for this company category. ‘Product’ companies in general are more exposed to price competition, which means that choice of cost levels is representative of a strategy choice problem for this category.