Strategic Leaders in the U.S. Brewing Industry: A Longitudinal Analysis of Outliers

Abstract

For over 15 years now, both strategy research and industrial organization (IO) economics research have been working on the development of a theory of strategic groups. Hunt (1972), Newman (1973, 1978), and Porter (1973, 1979; also see Caves and Porter, 1977) originally established some of the key concepts and hypotheses in strategic group research. However, empirical support to validate strategic groups or test hypotheses about strategic group theory has been mixed. For example, an important hypothesis in strategic group research argues that there are performance differences between strategic groups. This hypothesis found support with Oster (1982) and was partially supported in Dess and Davis (1984); however, Porter (1973, 1979), Caves and Porter (1977), Caves and Pugel (1980), and Cool and Schendel (1987), among others (e.g., Frazier and Howell, 1983), did not support this hypothesis.