Title: Strategic grouping in a fragmented market: SMEs' strive for legitimacy

Authors: Marc Dressler

Addresses: Weincampus Neustadt, University of Ludwigshafen, Breitenweg 71, D-67435 Neustadt, Germany

Abstract: Strategic positioning lays the foundation for sustainable competitive advantage and profitability. An ongoing scientific discourse on superior strategies and whether to position close or far from competitors reveals the need for additional research. This article reports on an empirical study assessing strategic behaviour and the resulting performance impact in a small business industry with high fragmentation - the German wine industry. Against expectations derived from resource dependency theory, strategic grouping of the surveyed wineries turned out to be dominated by broad scope and closeness to competitors. An inferior performance of product-centric profiling confirms the expected risk of 'stuck-in-the-middle' strategies.

Keywords: generic strategy; strategic grouping; close or far from competitors; RDT; SME; wine industry; Germany.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESB.2017.085996

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 2017 Vol.32 No.1/2, pp.229 - 253

Received: 02 Jul 2015
Accepted: 08 Mar 2016
Published online: 21 Aug 2017 *

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