Impact of strategic orientation competitive strategies on venture growth in Sri Lankan SMES.

Abstract

SME sector in Sri Lanka plays a vital role in the economy. However, it confronts with so many barriers and ultimately it leads to failure of majority of new ventures. Previous studies have shown that strategic management concepts and tools are adopted by the well-established organizations and less attention has been paid by the SME sector. When it is discussed about the growth and survival of the SME sector, it is important to practice and adopt these concepts. With that view this study attempts to examine the impact of Strategic Orientation (SO) on venture performance. On the other hand small businesses also should be competitive enough to face the competition in order to survive in the market. Accordingly this study aims to examine the impact of competitive strategies on venture performance. Strategic management literature points out that the culture is an important factor in implementing strategies and to be strategically oriented. Accordingly organizational culture has been identified as a moderating variable. In order to achieve these objectives, a conceptual frame work has been proposed by this study through a rigorous literature review.considering the persistence of such decisions over time, particularly in the extractive industries. Drawing on imprinting theory, this paper provides a theoretical link between the initial natural resource characteristics surrounding a firm’s birth and its choice of vertical integration. The main argument is that initial natural resource conditions have an imprinting effect on the vertical integration decisions made by firms in the extractive industries. An imprinting process through which imprinting happens is explained. This mechanism acts as the carrier of initial influences as how firms lock-in a decision for their supply chain management. We discuss the above mechanism and several propositions concerning the kind of influence different initial natural resource characteristics have on firm decisions. Our main contribution is presenting a natural imprinting view that can explain the enduring effect of natural environment characteristics on firms’ ownership structures in the extractive industries.