Title

Assessing Whether Strategic Typologies Exist Within Publicly Held Firms in the Financial Service Industry

Document Type

Grant Proposal

Date Accepted

Summer 2006

Project Description/Abstract

The purpose of this study is to learn whether successful firms compared to less successful firms adhere to a formulistic approach by following a certain type of competitive strategy. Only public firms within the Financial Service industry are included in this study. The author chose this industry because of a long career in the industry. Public firms were selected because these firms must communicate their competitive strategies to the general public via annual report. The first goal of the study is to evaluate if the methodological approach and theoretical basis of the study support the authors’ hypothesis and can be generalized to firms in other industries. The second goal of the study is to learn if firm size is associated with the type of competitive strategy selected. The author hypothesizes that size does influence the type of competitive strategy pursued by successful firms. It is expected that the strategies are both describable and clearly linked to successful firms. Industry benchmarks using percentage changes in revenues, profits and market are developed by the author. Firm performance is compared with the benchmarks. Firms falling below the benchmarks are labeled unsuccessful firms and those exceeding the benchmarks are considered successful firms. To add rigor to the assessment of a firm’s performance, successful firms must exceed the annual benchmarks between the years 1990 and 2004 on a consistent basis.

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