Examining Generic Competitive Strategy Types in U.S. and European Markets

Identification of generic competitive strategy types has recently attracted considerable attention. Most of this research has, however, focused on competitive strategy of U.S. businesses in their domestic market. The present study extends these findings to markets outside the United States, and more specifically Europe, based on a sample of industrial businesses drawn from the PIMS database. Similar dimensions underlying competitive strategy, and similar generic types are found among businesses in the U.S. and in Europe. Some differences in the performance and business characteristics of certain strategy types were, however, observed between U.S. and European markets. Rate of market growth also appeared to have a more significant relation to performance of businesses in Europe than in the U.S.