Assessing Relationships among Strategic Types,

Distinctive Marketing Competencies,

and Organizational Performance
Arch G. Woodside
TULANE UNIVERSITY

Daniel P. Sullivan
TULANE UNIVERSITY

Randolph J. Trappey III

TULANE UNIVERSITY

The multi-item scale developed by Conant, Mokwa, and Varadarajan

(1990) for assessing Miles and Snows (1978) strategic typology is applied
in a multi-industry, cross-sectional study of 93 Finnish enterprises. To
replicate and extend the findings of previous reports, three principal
hypotheses are examined: (1) prospector, analyzer, and defender strategic
types more often exhibit higher levels of distinctive marketing competencies
than reactors; (2) distinctive marketing competencies are associated positively and strongly with organizational performance; (3) a weak association exists among the strategic types and organizational performance.
The results support al three hypotheses. The importance of distinctive
marketing competencies in serving as intervening variables between strategic types and organizational performance is illustrated. J BUSN RES 1999.
45.135146. 1999 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.

he strategic orientation toward product-markets of

most organizations can be categorized as fitting one of
a limited number of strategic types. Both of two wellknown strategic typologies (Miles and Snow, 1978; Porter,
1980) include descriptions of four archetypes. Miles and Snow
(1978) proposed that the first three of the following four strategic types enjoy similar degrees of success, whereas the last is a
strategic failure: prospectors, analyzers, defenders, and reactors.
Porter (1980) proposed that three potentially successful generic
competitive strategies can occur in any industry: overall cost
leadership, differentiation, and focus. Porter also described a
low performing strategy: stuck-in-the-middle.1
Focusing on the Miles and Snow (1978) strategic typology,
Address correspondence to Arch G. Woodside, A. B. Freeman School of
Business, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118.
Journal of Business Research 45, 135146 (1999)
1999 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.
655 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10010

Conant, Mokwa, and Varadarajan (1990, p. 377) point out

that a large number of studies examining the relationships
between strategic types and performance suggest that organizational performance will be (1) equal in defender, prospector,
and analyzer organizations; and (2) higher than in reactor
organizations.
In their own empirical study of 83 health maintenance
organizations (14 defenders, 36 prospectors, 29 analyzers,
and 4 reactors), Conant et al. (1990) support this hypothesis.
However, the small reported F-value and significance level
(F 5 2.92, p 5 .04) and small number of reactors included
in their test indicate a weak association between strategic types
and organizational performance. A change in the organizational performance score of one reactor respondent would
likely eliminate support for the hypothesis and the conclusion
implied that strategic types are associated with organizational
performance.
Reviewing other studies (e.g., Snow and Hambrick, 1983;
Smith, Guthrie, and Chen, 1986) that examined all four strategic types of Miles and Snow (1978) leads to the same conclusion: very little of the variance in organizational performance
is explained by the proposed four strategic types.
Two explanations can be offered for the lack of a substantive
association between strategic types and organizational perfor1

Using ratings of 25 MBA students, Segev (1989) provides a useful synthesis

of these two typologies along the lines of two principal dimensions of 31
strategic variables: internal consistency and proactiveness. The six successful
archetypes were found to have high and almost identical rates of internal
consistency, whereas the reactor and stuck-in-the-middle firms rate very low
on internal consistency. On the proactiveness dimension, the following order
was found by Segev: prospector . differentiation . analyzer . overall cost
leadership 5 focus . defender.
ISSN 0148-2963/99/$see front matter
PII S0148-2963(97)00232-4

136

J Busn Res
1999:45:135146

mance. First, strategic type refers to the problem and solution

sets (Miles and Snow, 1978) the organization is focused on;
the four strategic types proposed by Miles and Snow are
not intended to reflect how well organizations perform but,
instead, how organizations perceive what they have to do.
Second, the effectiveness of a particular strategic orientation
is likely to be contingent upon the dynamic market conditions
facing the enterprise; a view that receives modest empirical
support in a study by McKee, Varadarajan, and Pride (1989).
So many factors (including luck and competitor misfortune)
can affect organizational performance, in a particular year or
short span of years (cf. Kotler, 1991, p. 230), that a focus on
the direct links between strategic types and organizational
performance may be of little value.
The research report by Conant et al. (1990) is noteworthy
theoretically, and particularly useful for strategists, in the relationships they find among strategy types and distinctive marketing competencies. Their findings include significant F-values for 14 of 20 distinctive marketing competencies. The
strategic types were found to be arrayed ordinally in terms
of their relative degree of marketing related competencies:
prospector . analyzer . defender . reactor.
Given that distinctive marketing competencies are associated substantially with organizational performance (an hypothesis not examined by Conant et al., 1990), such competencies may serve to link strategic types and organizational
performance. Because distinctive marketing competencies refer to an organizations unique abilities to gain knowledge
about customers and provide benefits sought by customers,
such abilities should be associated directly with the organizations performance relative to competitors (along with luck
and environmental factors).
Thus, a strong two-step relationship may be proposed and
tested: the four strategic types being linked with distinctive
marketing competencies and such competencies linked with
organizational performance. We report a multi-industry, crosssectional, field study to examine this proposal. The results confirm a consistent pattern of relationships linking strategic types
to distinctive marketing competencies, and these competencies
to organizational performance; strategic types are found not to
be associated directly with organizational performance.
The remainder of the article is organized as follows. A brief
review of validity and reliability issues in methods to assess
the Miles and Snow strategic typology is presented. Second,
three hypotheses are presented. Third, the research method
is described. Fourth, the findings are presented and evaluated.
Finally, implications for research and management are offered
in the discussion section.

Assessing the Validity and

Reliability of Operations of
Miles and Snows Strategic Types
Four empirical methods have been used for assigning organizations into one of the four Miles and Snow strategy types:

A. G. Woodside et al.

self-typing (the most widely operationalization), objective indicators, external assessment, and investigator inference (cf.
Snow and Hambrick, 1980). Conant et al. (1990) reported
one of the few empirical studies to use multiple approaches
(two self-typing scales) in the same study.
Conant et al. (1990) developed and provided a multiitem scale for operationalizing the Miles and Snow strategic
typology appears to provide acceptable levels of validity (100%
concurrence on content validity by a panel of judges) and
reliability (average test-retest reliability coefficient 5 0.69). An
additional aim of the present study is to offer an independent
assessment of this scale.
The Conant et al. (1990) scale includes 11 items covering
all 11 principal dimensions they explicated from the Miles and
Snow typology.2 Four distinct response options are provided for
each question. Each response option characterizes a distinctive
archetype relative to one of the principal dimensions. Conant
et al. (1990, p. 372) emphasized that such a self-reporting
approach has been acknowledged as an appropriate method to
use when conducting strategy research (cf. Snow and Hambrick,
1980; Harrigan, 1983; Huber and Power, 1985) and has been
utilized frequently in strategy research (cf. Dess and Davis,
1984; Smith et al., 1986; Snow and Hrebiniak, 1980).
Several research method experts have emphasized the need
to avoid single-item scales and to develop valid and reliable
multi-item scales (Nunnally, 1978; Peter, 1979). Most constructs by definition are too complex to be measured effectively
with a single item, and multi-item scales are necessary for appropriate reliability and validity assessment (Peter, 1979, p. 16).
Thus, if the validity and reliability estimates are verified independently, the new scale would offer significant managerial and
research potential as claimed by Conant et al. (1990, p. 365).
In applying their scale, Conant et al. (1990) used a majorityrule decision structure: organizations were classified as defenders, prospectors, analyzers, or reactors depending on the
archetypal response option that was selected most often. Ties
involving reactor response options resulted in the organization
being categorized as a reactor; ties not involving the reactor
response options resulted in the organization being classified
as an analyzer. Thus, each firm (n 5 148) providing complete
responses to the multi-item scale was classified into one of
the four archetypes. Conant et al. (1990) also used an adaptation (to reflect HMOs) of Snow and Hrebiniaks (1980) paragraph approach in the same study. The overall degree of
convergence achieved between the two scales was 56%.
Conant et al. (1990) decided to narrow their data set to
relatively pure (cf. Hambrick, 1982, p. 162) strategic archetypes by including only organizations identified in the same

Other multi-item scales (cf. Smith, Guthrie, and Chen, 1986; Segev, 1987)
may not be as comprehensive in estimating the 11 strategic dimensions in
Miles and Snow typology as Conant et al.s (1990) newer scale. The objectives
of the study reported here did not include an examination of the relative
validities and reliabilities of these multi-item scales.

Assessing Strategic Types

J Busn Res
1999:45:135146

137

Figure 1. Hypothesized relationships among strategic types, distinctive marketing competencies, and organizational performance.

archetype by both scales. Thus, their analyses are based on

the responses of 83 organizations: 36 prospectors, 29 analyzers, 14 defenders, and four reactors.
Few organizations may be oriented strategically toward one
archetype across most or all 11 distinctive strategic dimensions. Some elements of all four strategic types may be exhibited by the same organization to such an extent that it may
not be possible to identify the organizations strategic orientation as fitting one archetype. One reason why such an ambiguous, or mixed, strategic type occurs is provided by Mintzberg
(1988, p. 55). Organizations add a good deal of strategic
baggage over time, just as individuals do in their private lives;
periodic housecleaning is often in order for both.
Miles and Snow (1978) described analyzers as hybrid
organizations that possess both defender and prospector characteristics. Classifying such organizations distinctly as analyzers may be especially difficult.
Thus, a useful approach may be to not require all organizations to be identified as fitting one archetype when using the
Conant et al. (1990) scale. Some organizations may be best
identified as representing an ambiguous strategic type. Both
approaches to classifying organizations were evaluated in the
present study.

Whereas luck and many other factors may affect organizational performance (Kotler, 1991, p. 230), a substantial body
of empirical evidence supports the view that organizations that
are able to demonstrate distinctive marketing competencies
outperform their competitors (e.g., Clifford and Cavanagh,
1985; Saunders and Wong, 1985; Buzzell and Gale, 1987;
Baker and Hart, 1989).
H3: The four strategic types are hypothesized to be associated weakly with organizational performance.
Rationales for this hypothesis includes Miles and Snows
(1978) proposition that, because of their consistent response
to environmental dynamics, prospectors, analyzers, and defenders are equally likely to perform well. The performance
of reactors is below these three archetypes because they fall
into an unpleasant cycle of responding inappropriately to
environmental changes.
Also, strong relationships have not been reported empirically between the Miles and Snow strategic types and organizational performance (cf. Snow and Hrebiniak, 1980; Hambrick,
Table 1. Sign Test Results for Twenty Distinctive Marketing Competencies for Pure Strategic Types in Two Studies

Hypotheses

Comparison

Three hypotheses were formulated for examination. These

hypotheses are summarized in Figure 1.

P.A
A.P
P5A
P.D
D.P
P5D
P.R
R.P
P5R
A.D
D.A
A5D
A.R
R.A
A5R
D.R
R.D
D5R

H1: The following order of superiority/inferiority on evaluations of distinctive marketing competencies is found:
prospectors . analyzers . defenders . reactors.
Rationales for this hypothesis include several theoretical
propositions by Miles and Snow, for example, the prospectors prime capability is that of finding and exploiting new
product and market opportunities (1978, p. 55). Also, the
hypothesized rank order is found to be significant statistically
in a sign test (Siegel, 1956) of Conant et al.s (1990) findings.
The results of this test are reported in Table 1 of the present
article.
H2: Evaluations of distinctive marketing competencies are
associated positively with organizational performance.

Conant, Mokwa, and

Varadarajan (1990)
Results (p)
15
4
1
17
3
0
19
1
0
14
6
0
20
0
0
17
3
0

(0.02)
(0.001)
(0.001)
(0.06)
(0.001)
(0.001)

Present
Study
Results (p)
15
4
1
20
0
0
20
0
0
18
2
0
19
1
0
18
1
1

(0.02)
(0.001)
(0.001)
(0.001)
(0.001)
(0.001)

138

J Busn Res
1999:45:135146

1983; Smith et al., 1986; Conant et al., 1990). Conant et al.

(1990, p. 377) found a significant relationship (F 5 2.92;
p 5 0.04) but do not report the strength of this relationship.
However, with an F equal to 2.92, and 3 and 79 degrees of
freedom, the strength of the relationship between strategic
types and organizational performance in the Conant et al.
(1990) can be estimated using omega-squared (Hays, 1973).
The results of such an analysis on the Conant et al. (1990)
findings indicates that 6.2% of the variance in organizational
performance is accounted for by strategic types.
Defining relationships accounting for less than 10% of
variance estimates to be weak, 10 to 20% to be moderate, and
over 20% to be strong, we conclude a weak direct relationship
between strategic types and organizational performance may
exist. The three hypotheses serves to propose a strong twostep relationship that links strategic types to organizational
performance via distinctive marketing competencies.

Research Method
The study reported is a multi-industry, cross-sectional, convenience sample of single informants (n 5 119) completing
self-reports on the tree principal sets of operationalizations:
strategic types, distinctive marketing competencies, and organizational performance. The respondents were postgraduate
students enrolled in the Helsinki School of Economics Executive M.B.A. program during 1990 and 1991. All respondents
were fluent in the English language. Most of the respondents
were middle and senior managers, ranging in age form 27 to
58 years. The survey forms were distributed during the first
class meeting of the marketing management course for completion and the forms were returned the following day.

Instruments
The Conant et al. (1990) multi-item scale of the Miles and
Snow strategic archetypes was adapted for the purpose of the
study. To generalize the applicability of the scale, HMO
was replaced with organization in the items in the scale.
Responses to the Snow and Hrebiniaks (1980) paragraph
descriptions were also collected.
The 20-item distinctive marketing competencies scale developed by Conant et al. (1990) was completed by the respondents. The scale requires respondents to evaluate how well or
poorly they perceive their organizations performs relative to
their competitors. Seven-point responses are available for each
scale item ranging from 1 5 much worse to 7 5 much better.
For reporting organizational performance, a three-item
scale was used. The first two items represented the complete
scale developed and used by Conant et al. (1990) to assess
organizational performance: the respondents evaluated their
organizations general profitability relative to their competitors
and their organizations relative return on investment. The
third item asked respondents to evaluate the overall level of
satisfaction with using the products and services your organization provides to its customers compared to other organizations in the same industry as your own organization.

A. G. Woodside et al.

This third item was included to examine the influence of

strategic archetypes and distinctive marketing competencies
on a nonmonetary organizational performance variable. Using
data from the profit impact of marketing strategy data, providing superior service and quality to customers, and therefore,
higher customer satisfaction relative to competitors, has been
identified as the most important distinctive marketing competence (Buzzell and Gale, 1987; p. 7). Thus, a strong-relationship among some distinctive marketing competencies and the
third organizational performance measure, customer satisfaction, was expected.
Conant et al. (1990) noted that managerial self-reports of
organizational performance have been found to be consistent
with objective performance measures internal to the organization (Dess and Robinson, 1984), as well as secondary published performance data external to the organization (Venkatraman and Ramanujam, 1986).
Organizational and personal demographic questions were
also included in the survey form. To ensure that the respondents possessed an adequate knowledge and awareness of the
relationship between their organization and its environment,
the two screening questions were used. Respondents (n 5
14) reporting little direct knowledge of their organizations
strategies and who possessed low levels of confidence in their
ability to evaluate the manner in which their organizations
develop strategy were excluded from the data analyses.

Classification Procedures
For the responses to the nominal scale level, Conant et al.
(1990) multi-item, instrument for assessing strategic types,
two decision-rules were used to categorize each organization
into an archetype. First, a weak plurality rule was applied:
organizations were classified as prospectors, analyzers, defenders, or reactors, depending on the archetypal response
option that was selected more often than any other archetypal
response option. For example, if a respondent selected four
prospector response options and three or less archetypal response options for the other seven items, the organization
would be categorized as a prospector. Ties were handled by
creating an ambiguous category based on the rationale that
some organizations display no dominant enduring pattern
of strategic behavior, and that applying additional rules for
assigning ties to the Miles and Snow archetypes reduces the
ability to gain information from the data.
Second, a strong plurality rule was applied: the responses
for a given strategic archetype selected most often had to
include two or more responses compared to the strategic
archetype selected in second place. For example, a respondent
selecting five defender archetype responses, three prospector,
two analyzer, and one reactor responses, would be working
in an organization categorized as a defender. For data analyses
used with this strong plurality rule, ties were eliminated to
test the hypotheses using relatively pure (Hambrick, 1982,
p. 162) archetypes.

Assessing Strategic Types

Results
A total of 93 completed survey forms were collected. Informants averaged 14 years of experience in their current organizations. The organizations represented in the responses were
from industrial manufacturing (31%), banking (22%), export
services (13%), retailing (9%), distribution and other organizations (25%). A total of 22% held the position of chief operating office or managing director, senior/executive vice president was the job title of 13%, other positions receiving 5%
or more responses included marketing manager, product manager, controller, and administrative director. Their organizations averaged 250 employees.

Sample Composition by Strategic Types

The use of the paragraph approach resulted in a distribution
of 27 prospectors, 31 analyzers, 21 defenders, and 14 reactors.
The use of the weak plurality rule resulted in a distribution
of 21 prospectors, 19 analyzers, 31 defenders, 15 reactors,
and seven ambiguous organizations. The use of the strong
plurality rule resulted in 15 prospectors, 15 analyzers, 25
defenders, and 11 reactors.
The use of both the paragraph measure and the multi-item
measure with the strong plurality rule resulted in only a 32%
sample convergence. The relatively pure archetypes resulting
from the convergence included six prospectors, four analyzers,
five defenders, and six reactors. Given these results, the high
test-retest convergence results for the multi-item scale reported by Conant et al. (1990) and because the multi-item
scale reflects all 11 dimensions underlying the theoretical
construct, we decided to restrict the analyses to the classification of organizations by the weak and strong plurality rules.

H1: Strategic Types and Distinctive

Marketing Competencies
When applying the strong plurality rule, the findings provide
strong support the first hypothesis. The following superiority
pattern is found for the distinctive marketing competencies:
prospector . analyzer . defender . reactor. The pattern found
using the weak plurality rule is similar but not as definitive.
Detailed results appear in Table 1, Table 2A and Table 2B.
The relationships among distinctive marketing competencies and strategic types were examined using analysis of variance (ANOVA) for the organizations. For organizations classified using the weak plurality rule, the findings appear in Table
2A. For organizations classified using the strong plurality rule,
the findings appear in Table 2B.
In Table 2A, the ANOVA F-statistic is significant (p ,
0.05) for 11 of the 20 distinctive marketing competencies.
Pairwise comparisons for these 11 dimensions via a Tukey
test (p , 0.05; cf. Banks, 1965) result in the reactors averages
always being significantly lower than one or more of the
other Miles and Snow strategic archetypes; in none of the

J Busn Res
1999:45:135146

139

comparisons were significant differences found among prospector, analyzer, reactor, and ambiguous organizations (details
not included in Table 2A).
In Table 2B, the ANOVA F-statistic is significant for 12 of
the 20 distinctive marketing competencies. Pairwise comparisons via Tukey tests for these 12 dimensions indicate that
the factors always average below one or more of the other
archetypes and none of the comparison among prospectors,
analyzers, and defenders being significant (details not included
in Table 2B).
Sign test results for the 20 distinctive marketing competencies are summarized in Table 1. Sign test results for the findings
from Conant et al.s (1990) study as well as the present study
are very similar; a strong pattern supporting H1 is found in
both studies.
However, the findings reported in Table 1 may be somewhat misleading in assuming that 20 distinctive competencies
actually are distinct from one another. Psychometric examination of the Conant et al. (1990) scale for distinctive marketing
competencies may indicate that several of the 20 items tap
the same dimensions. Thus, we digress to examine this issue.

Psychometric Examination of the Conant et al.

(1990) Distinctive Marketing Competency Scale
The findings from an orthogonally rotated factor analysis (Kerlinger, 1973) of the total sample responses (n 5 93) are
reported in Table 3. Factor loadings greater than 0.50 are
reported in Table 3. Five factors are found with eigenvalues
greater than 1.0; 68.5% of the total response variance is explained with this five-factor solution.
As displayed in Table 3, seven items load heavily on the
first factor. We assigned the label, skills to this factor. This
first factor explained close to 40% of the total response variance and, as such, appears to be the dominant marketing
competency factor.
Based on the three items included, image was name assigned to the second factor. The advertising effectiveness item
loaded on both of the first two factors but in subsequent
analysis this item was included among the other items loading
on the first factor.
Service was the name assigned to the third factor. This
factor includes four items as displayed in Table 3. Knowledge
identifies the fourth factor; the three items included all make
reference to the organizations level of knowledge. Funds
identifies the fifth factor; the three items included concern
refer to costs, revenues, and pricing.
For estimating correlations among the factors, total factor
scores were calculated by weighting the item responses for
each factor by their factor scores and summing. Also total
factor scores were calculated using the summed raw scores
for each factor. The correlation findings from both approaches
were very similar; the reported results and further analyses
are based on the summed factor scores.
Cronbach alphas (Nunnally, 1978) and correlations between the factors are reported in Table 4. For the first four

140

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1999:45:135146

A. G. Woodside et al.

Table 2A. Results of Analysis of Variance: Strategic Types and Distinctive Marketing Competencies

Distinctive Marketing
Competency
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.

Knowledge of customers
Knowledge of competitors
Knowledge of industry trends
Accuracy of profitability and
revenue forecasting
Awareness of organizational
marketing strengths
Awareness of organizational
marketing weaknesses
Marketing planning process
Allocation of marketing
department resources
Integration of marketing
activities
Skill to segment and
target markets
Ability to differentiate
service offerings
New service development
process
Quality of service and
offerings
Effectiveness of pricing
program(s)
Advertising effectiveness
Effectiveness of public
relations
Image
Locations of facilities
Effectiveness of cost
containment
Control and evaluation of
marketing activities

Prospector
(P)
n 5 21

Strategic Types
Analyzer Defender Reactor
(A)
(D)
(R)
n 5 19
n 5 31
n 5 15

Ambiguous
(M)
n57

Total
Sample
n 5 93

Univariate
F-value

(p)

5.6
5.0
5.4

5.1
4.9
5.6

5.0
4.7
5.2

4.2
4.0
4.1

4.4
4.1
4.9

5.0
4.6
5.1

3.56
1.50
5.09

(0.01)
(0.21)
(0.001)

5.1

4.8

4.5

4.1

5.0

4.7

1.58

(0.19)

5.0

4.9

4.8

3.3

4.3

4.6

5.00

(0.001)

4.4
4.6

4.1
4.7

4.1
3.9

3.2
3.3

4.0
3.6

4.0
4.1

2.37
3.51

(0.06)
(0.01)

4.2

4.3

3.9

2.9

3.9

3.9

2.43

(0.05)

4.2

4.1

4.2

2.9

4.4

4.0

2.45

(0.05)

5.0

4.8

4.6

3.9

4.0

4.6

1.53

(0.20)

5.3

5.1

4.7

4.1

4.9

4.8

1.98

(0.10)

5.0

5.3

4.7

3.6

5.0

4.7

2.61

(0.04)

5.8

5.8

5.5

4.6

5.6

5.5

3.34

(0.01)

4.8
5.0

4.8
4.7

4.7
3.7

4.7
3.2

4.0
4.1

4.7
4.2

0.62
5.19

(0.65)
(0.001)

4.9
5.4
5.3

4.6
5.9
5.0

4.2
4.8
4.7

3.6
4.0
3.9

4.9
5.0
4.7

4.4
5.1
4.8

1.74
4.57
2.03

(0.15)
(0.002)
(0.10)

4.6

4.3

4.5

4.5

4.6

4.5

0.10

(0.98)

4.0

4.4

4.1

2.7

4.1

3.9

4.70

(0.002)

factors, the alpha coefficients are close to, or above, the 0.70
level recommended by Nunnally (1978) for measurement instruments in their developmental stages.
Given the exploratory nature of examining the underlying
factor structure of the marketing competency scale and the
significantly higher alpha correlation found for the fifth factor
compared to its correlations with the other four factors (p ,
0.05), the three items included in the fifth factor in Table 3
were included in estimating this factor for examining the
hypotheses.
All correlations reported in Table 4 are significant (p ,
0.01) with the exception of the correlation between knowledge
and funds (r 5 0.15) indicating that moderate to strong relationships exist among the five factors. We conclude that five
unique, but related, marketing competency factors are found
in the Conant et al. (1990) marketing competency scale. Research findings from additional studies are needed for confirming this conclusion.

Additional Test of Strategic Types and

Distinctive Marketing Competencies
For the weak plurality data classification, the ANOVA results
for testing H1 using summed item scores for each factor are
summarized in Table 5. Weak to moderate strength relationships are found for the first four factors and the five strategic
types. The ANOVA findings for the strong plurality data classification (not shown) are very similar to the results reported
in Table 5.
The organizations classified as rejectors are found to have
significantly lower marketing competencies compared to prospectors for the first four factors. Rejectors average lower marketing competencies for three of the first four factors compared
with analyzers. Rejectors average lower marketing competencies for the service and knowledge factors compared with
defenders. None of the paired comparisons involving the organizations classified in the ambiguous category was significant.

Assessing Strategic Types

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1999:45:135146

141

Table 2B. Results of Analysis for Pure Strategic Types

Distinctive Marketing
Competency
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.

Knowledge of customers
Knowledge of competitors
Knowledge of industry trends
Accuracy of profitability and
revenue forecasting
Awareness of organizational
marketing strengths
Awareness of organizational
marketing weaknesses
Marketing planning process
Allocation of marketing
department resources
Integration of marketing
activities
Skill to segment and target
markets
Ability to differentiate
service offerings
New service development
process
Quality of service and
offerings
Effectiveness of pricing
program(s)
Advertising effectiveness
Effectiveness of public
relations
Image
Locations of facilities
Effectiveness of cost
containment
Control and evaluation of
marketing activities

Prospector
(P)
n 5 15

Strategic Types
Analyzer
Defender
(A)
(D)
n 5 15
n 5 26

Reactor
(R)
n 5 11

Total
Sample
n 5 67

Univariate
F-value

(p)

5.6
5.2
5.5

5.1
4.8
5.5

4.8
4.6
5.1

4.4
3.9
3.9

5.0
4.7
5.1

2.46
1.73
4.99

(0.07)
(0.17)
(0.00)

4.9

4.8

4.4

3.8

4.5

1.63

(0.19)

5.0

4.9

4.7

3.2

4.6

5.88

(0.00)

4.4
4.9

4.2
4.7

3.8
3.8

3.2
3.3

3.9
4.1

2.72
4.80

(0.05)
(0.00)

4.5

4.3

3.7

3.0

3.9

2.44

(0.07)

4.5

4.1

4.0

3.1

4.0

1.79

(0.16)

5.1

4.8

4.2

3.6

4.4

2.99

(0.04)

5.3

5.1

4.3

3.9

4.7

3.35

(0.02)

5.1

5.3

4.5

3.7

4.7

2.90

(0.04)

5.9

5.7

5.3

4.5

5.4

3.57

(0.02)

4.8
4.9

4.9
4.7

4.7
3.6

4.5
3.4

4.7
4.1

0.31
4.35

(0.82)
(0.01)

4.7
5.5
5.3

4.6
6.0
4.6

4.2
4.7
4.7

3.3
3.9
3.5

4.3
5.1
4.6

2.01
3.20
3.05

(0.12)
(0.03)
(0.04)

4.5

4.2

4.4

4.4

4.4

0.57

(0.97)

4.1

4.2

3.9

2.9

3.9

2.69

(0.05)

Although not significant statistically, the average values for

the first four factors are higher for prospectors and analyzers
compared with defenders. The profiles for prospectors and
analyzers are very similar for the average values across the
five factors. Thus, these findings provide additional support to
the conclusion that prospectors and analyzers exhibit slightly
higher levels of marketing competencies compared with defenders, and all three exhibit substantially higher marketing
competencies for two or more marketing competency factors.

H2: Distinctive Marketing Competencies

and Organizational Performance
Pearson product-moment correlations among the factor scores
and the three measures of organizational performance support
the second hypothesis: distinctive marketing competencies are
associated strongly with organizational performance. Details
appear in Table 6.
The patterns of correlations in Table 6 indicate that profit

and ROI are very similarly associated with the five marketing
competencies, whereas customer satisfaction is associated differently across the five marketing competencies. Given that
profit and ROI are monetary measures of performance, the
findings that the highest correlations of these two performance
measures occur with the only monetary related marketing
competency factor, the fifth factor, funds, meets a priori expectations that effective cost containment, accuracy of profit and
revenue forecasting, and effective pricing programs are associated with higher profits. Although significant, the correlation
of funds and customer satisfaction is substantially lower (r 5
0.29) compared with the correlations of funds and profit and
ROI (differences significant at p , 0.01). Such an expected
and achieved discrimination pattern of relationships indicates
substantial nomological validity (Peter, 1981) for the proposition that different marketing competency factors strongly affect different organizational performance variables.
In examining the correlations in Table 6, the marketing

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A. G. Woodside et al.

Table 3. Rotated Factor Matrix of Distinctive Marketing Competencies

Scale Number and Question
7. Marketing planning process
8. Allocation of marketing
department resources
9. Integration of marketing
activities
20. Control and evaluation of
marketing activities
15. Advertising effectiveness
6. Awareness of organizational
marketing weaknesses
10. Skill to segment and target
markets
16. Effectiveness of public relations
17. Image
18. Locations of facilities
12. New service development
process
11. Ability to differentiate
service offering
5. Awareness of organizational
marketing strengths
13. Quality of services and offerings
2. Knowledge of other organizations
1. Knowledge of customers
3. Knowledge of industry trends
19. Effectiveness of cost containment
4. Accuracy of profitability and
revenue forecasting
14. Effectiveness of pricing programs
Percent of variance
Cumulative percent

Skills

Image

Factor
Service

Knowledge

Funds

83
83
79
67
59

54

57
55
79
77
72
84
72
61
54
87
60
60
80
70
50
39.6
39.6

8.6
48.2

7.7
55.9

6.4
62.4

6.2
68.5

Note: Decimals omitted for factor scores.

competency factor of service appears to be a linking factor

among the five marketing competencies and the three measures of organizational performance. The service factor reflects
the organizations skill in delivering distinct and superior benefits to customers. Not achieving this skill may lead to both
inferior levels of customer satisfaction and poor financial performance.
Stepwise multiple regression findings of the influence of
the marketing competency factors on the three measures of
organizational performance indicate that the service factor
is the only marketing competency factor to make a unique
contribution to explained variance for all three performance
measures. Results are summarized in Table 7.
Funds and service are the two marketing competency factors that alone explain 39 and 30% of the variance in ROI
and profit, respectively. Service and image, followed by knowledge, are the three marketing competency factors that explain
30% of the variance in customer satisfaction. The empirical
models in Table 7 indicate that very similar relationships
between the marketing competence factors and ROI and profit;

compared with these two models, a unique relationship is

found between the marketing competency factors and customer satisfaction.
Thus, designing and offering superior service to customers
may be a necessary, but not sufficient, marketing competency
for achieving both high profits-ROI and customer satisfaction.
Developing a keen skill related to managing organizational
costs, revenue forecasting, and prices (the funds factor) may

Table 4. Correlations (and Coefficient Alphas) for Five Distinctive

Marketing Competency Variables (n 5 93)
Variable

Skills

Image

Skills
Image
Service
Knowledge
Funds

(0.90)

0.51
(0.67)

Variables
Service Knowledge
0.64
0.46
(0.83)

0.54
0.42
0.49
(0.71)

Funds
0.38
0.32
0.41
0.15
(0.59)

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143

Table 5. Strategic Types and Distinctive Marketing Competencies

Distinctive Marketing
Competency

P
n 5 21

Strategic Types
A
D
n 5 19
n 5 31

R
n 5 15

M
n57

Total
Sample
n 5 93

Skills

32

31

28

22

28

29

Image

36

35

31

27

34

33

Service

21

21

20

16

20

20

Knowledge

16

16

15

12

13

15

Funds

15

14

14

13

14

14

Univariate
F-value
4.38
(p , 0.003)
2.56
(p , 0.04)
4.50
(p , 0.002)
4.80
(p , 0.001)
0.58
(p , 0.68)

x2
0.12
0.06
0.13
0.14
0.00

Key: P 5 prospector; A 5 analyzer; D 5 defender; R 5 reactor; M 5 ambiguous.

Tukey test results (p , 0.05): Marketing skills: P, A . R; Service quality: P, A, D . R; Marketing knowledge: P, A, D . R; Image: P . R; Allocating funds: NS.

be a priority marketing competency for achieving high profits

and ROI. Effective organizational image management and deep
knowledge of customers, competitors, and industry trends
appear necessary in particular for achieving high customer
satisfaction.
Note that the dominant factor in explained variance among
the marketing competency items, skills, did not enter into the
stepwise regression models in Table 7. The skills factor is
associated strongly with the other four marketing competency
factors, especially service (r 5 0.64), and two or more of these
other four marketing competency factors are associated more
strongly with the three measures of organizational performance (see Table 6). Thus, we speculate for future research
that the skills factor serves as a foundation marketing competency on which the other four marketing competency factors
are built.
For achieving high performance an organization must display superior skills in marketing planning, allocating of marketing department resources, integrating marketing activities,
and controlling and evaluating marketing activities. Gaining
such superior skills may be necessary for achieving superior
marketing competencies for the image, service, knowledge,
Table 6. Correlations of Five Distinctive Marketing Competencies
with Organizational Performance Variables
Distinctive Marketing
Competency
Skills
Image
Service
Knowledge
Funds

Organizational Performance
Customer
Profit
ROI
Satisfaction
0.27
0.26
0.49
0.14 NS
0.57

0.27
0.30
0.48a
0.08 NS
0.58

0.43a
0.51a
0.54a
0.46a
0.29

p , 0.001.
Note: All relationships significant (p , .05) except two noted by NS, not significant.

and funds factors. The scale items in the skills factor all refer to
the organizationss ability at doing internal marketing activities
exceptionally well; most scale items in the other four marketing competency factors refer to doing external marketing activities exceptionally well.

Strategic Types and Organizational Performance

The findings support H3: the four strategic types are associated
weakly with organization performance. In applying both the
weak and strong plurality rules for classifying the responding
organizations, none of the reported ANOVA results are significant statistically. The findings from applying the weak plurality
rule are presented in Table 8. For the nine comparisons between prospectors, analyzers,and defenders versus reactors in
Table 7. Regression Model Results of Effects of Distinctive Marketing Competency Variables on Organizational Performance
Model

ROI
Funds
0.25
Service
0.11
Constant
20.76
Adjusted R2 5 0.39;
df 5 2/84; p , 0.0000
Profit
Funds
0.23
Service
0.10
Constant
20.36
Adjusted R2 5 0.30;
df 5 2/84; p , 0.0000
Customer satisfaction
Service
0.07
Image
0.03
Knowledge
0.07
Constant
1.69
Adjusted R2 5 0.30;
df 5 2/84; p , 0.0000

Sb

beta

t-value

p,

0.05
0.03
0.75

0.45
0.29

4.84
3.04
21.01

0.0000
0.0031
0.3157

0.05
0.03
0.72

0.45
0.28

4.80
2.95
20.49

0.0000
0.0041
0.6246

0.02
0.01
0.03
0.49

0.32
0.30
0.20

3.13
3.03
2.00
3.45

0.0024
0.0032
0.0488
0.0009

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Table 8. Strategic Types and Organizational Performance

Organizational Performance
Measure
Profit
Return on investment
Customer satisfaction

P
n 5 21

A
n 5 19

Strategic Types
D
n 5 31

5.0
5.1
5.6

4.9
4.7
5.4

4.9
4.7
5.2

R
n 5 15

M
n57

Total
Sample
n 5 93

Univariate
F-value (p)

4.5
4.3
4.7

4.7
4.7
5.4

4.9
4.8
5.3

0.31 (.87)
0.55 (.70)
1.58 (.19)

Key: P 5 prospector; A 5 analyzer; D 5 defender; R 5 reactor; M 5 ambiguous.

Table 8, the reactors had lower average performance scores

(p , 0.002, sign test); the same findings occurs for the comparisons when the strong plurality rule is applied. Thus, a consistent, but marginal, direct relationship is found between the
strategic types and organizational performance.

Discussion and Suggestions for

Future Research
The designed study and reported findings build directly on
the work reported by Conant et al. (1990). The central hypotheses and findings of the Conant et al. (1990) study were
supported and extended in the study reported here. Using a
multi-industry convenience sample of Finnish organizations
the same pattern of relationships are found as in the Conant
et al. (1990) study of organizations in the HMO industry in
the United States: prospectors . analyzers . defenders .
reactors across 20 distinctive marketing competencies. A weak
relationship was found in the present study between strategic
types and organizational performance.
Besides offering a replication of the Conant et al. (1990)
study to a multi-industry organizational sample in a different
country, the contributions of the present study include: testing
the relationship between distinctive marketing competencies
and organizational performance, estimating the strength of
the relationships between strategic types, distinctive marketing
competencies, and organizational performance, as well as offering refinements to Conant et al.s (1990) marketing competencies scale.
Three moderate-sized relationships are reported between
strategic types and distinctive marketing competencies (Table
5) that have theoretical and practical importance. Reactor
organizations, in comparison with prospector, analyzer, and
defender organizations, may often develop inferior marketing
competencies related to planning and integrating skills, service
offerings to customers, and knowledge about customers and
competitors. Also, the image management ability of reactors
appears often to be less than the other strategic types.
Five major, unique, factors may be present in the Conant
et al. (1990) marketing competency scale. The scale items in
the first four factors exhibited acceptable overall levels of
internal reliabilities (Table 4). The first factor accounted for
about two-fifths of the total variance in responses to the 20-

item scale. This first factor, skills, is related significantly to

the other four factors. The scales developed representing the
other four factors indicated that these four specific competency
factors explain substantial percentages of the variance in the
measures of organizational performance (R2 . 0.29).
Based on the findings in the reported study, a revised set
of hypotheses for examination in future research is summarized in Figure 2. This figure is an attempt to illustrate two
major propositions. First, we propose that strategic types are
related mainly to organizational performance through their development and implementation of distinctive marketing competencies. Second, different marketing competency factors are
associated with different organizational performance factors.
A third point: a primary factor, labeled skills, that includes
marketing planning and allocating/controlling of marketing
department resources, is a foundation marketing competency
dimension. This primary, internal, marketing competency dimension may be a necessary condition for developing additional marketing competencies necessary for achieving superior organizational performance.
Additional research is needed to examine both the existence
of reported five dimensions of distinctive marketing competencies and how these dimensions relate to strategic types and
organizational performance. Also, both cross-sectional and
longitudinal studies are needed using multiple-informants to
estimate convergence across two or more individuals in classifying organizations into strategic types. The use of multipleinformants from the same organization to examine validity
and reliability issues in classifying firms into strategic types
is particularly noteworthy; this point has been emphasized
by Conant et al. (1990, p. 379).
The limitations of the present study should be emphasized.
The findings are based on a convenience survey of singleinformants representing organizations in multiple industries.
The participants were students in an Executive M.B.A. program in Finland. The motivations and responses of these
participants are likely to be different than that found in other
studies. The observations of five principal dimensions of marketing competencies and the strength of relationships among
strategic types, marketing competencies, and organizational
performance may not be found in more representative, less
convenient, multi-industry respondent samples.

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145

Figure 2. Revised hypothesized relationships among strategic types, distinctive marketing competencies, and organizational performance.

Scales for Classifying Organizations

into Strategic Types
As noted by Conant et al. (1990, p. 379) and Peter (1979, p.
16) and earlier in this article, most constructs, including the
11 dimensions proposed by Miles and Snow (1978) for the
four strategic types, by definition are too complex to be measured effectively with a single item, and multi-item scales are
necessary for appropriate reliability and validity assessment.
Given: (1) these warnings about single items scales and the
value of multi-item scales; (2) the paragraph approach classifies firms into strategic types based on only two or three of
the 11 dimensions explicated in Miles and Snows (1978)
adaptive cycle; and (3) the convergence of less than 50%
found in the reported study and by Hambrick (1981), and
the convergence of 56% found by Conant et al. (1990) of
multi-item scales and the paragraph approach, then the identi-

fication of relatively pure strategic types may be accomplished

best by the use of two multi-item scales or by applying strong
plurality decision rules in classifying firms into strategic types.
As emphasized by Conant et al. (1990), their multi-item scale
for classifying firms by strategic types is new and at the developmental stage; additional work is needed in refining this
scale for research on strategic types.

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