The Miles–Snow typology (prospectors, defenders and analysers) has been widely used in the field of strategic management as well as in marketing. It applies to the business-level strategies of a firm, and it includes the capabilities, structures and processes necessary for the implementation of each strategy type.
At the time of our original research in the 1960s and 1970s, the field of strategic management did not yet exist as a formal academic discipline. The Miles and Snow (1978) typology helped to establish the field by integrating the literature on managerial strategizing and planning with the literature on organization theory. Our original empirical studies included firms in an industry undergoing transformation (college textbook publishing), two industries adapting to new technologies (microelectronics and hospitals), and a stable industry (food processing). In each industry, we identified patterns in firms’ strategic choices. Prospectors were first to the...
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Miles, R.E., Snow, C.C. (2016). Prospectors, Defenders, Analysers. In: Augier, M., Teece, D. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Strategic Management. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-94848-2_367-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-94848-2_367-1
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