The effect of industry life cycle stage on the strategy-making-firm performance relationship

This paper argues that individual small firms just like large firms, place differing emphasis on strategy-making and may employ different approaches to strategy-making. This paper offers an explanation of the nature of these processes in small firms and hypothesizes how they relate to performance. It further examines how these relationships differ depending on the industry life cycle stage. It then describes the results of an empirical study of the strategy-making processes of small firms. Analysis of the data (n=320) identifies four such processes in small firms, indicating that the participative and adaptive approaches to strategy-making may have a significant effect on firm performance, but that the importance and impact of these relationships will change when accounting for the effects of industry life cycle stage.