Стратегическое поведение российских фирм малого и среднего бизнеса в период экономического кризиса
Цель данного исследования – разработать модель, которая объясняет стратегическое поведение российских фирм малого и среднего бизнеса и его связь с результатами в период экономического кризиса. После анализа литературы на данную тему было проведено эмпирическое исследование 5 российских малых и средних фирм. Глубинные полу структурированные интервью, проведенные с представителями компаний, а также открытая информация и архивные записи показали, что стратегия, направленная на поиск нового, и чистые конкурентные стратегии положительно связаны с результатами фирм в период кризиса. Теоретическая ценность исследования заключается в том, что оно дополняет существующую дискуссию об эффективности чистых и комбинированных конкурентных стратегий и показывает связь стратегий “поиска нового” и “использования существующего” с конкурентными стратегиями и результатами фирм в период кризиса. Результаты работы могут быть полезны владельцам и менеджерам малых и средних предприятий для разработки стратегии в период экономического кризиса.
Research Motivation
When turbulent times come enterprises cannot stick to a strategy that they followed during economic advance. Some companies end up withdrawing from their business, the others manage to overcome crisis or even benefit from it. So, why consequences of economic crisis are different for businesses? Small and medium enterprises, a core of modern economies, are more exposed to economic crisis. So, how do SMEs adjust to such unstable and hostile environment as economic crisis and manage to survive?
Russia’s GDP growth rate slowed down in 2012 and was followed by economic crisis, which broke out in 2014 as a currency crisis. As a result, GDP decreased by 2.5%, real earnings dropped by 3.2%, and unemployment rate increased by 7.4% in 2015 (Federal State Statistics Service, 2015). By the moment, Russian economy returned back to growth. However, the rate is slow (Federal State Statistics Service, 2017). In addition, systemic reasons of the economic crisis, such as high dependence on oil prices, economic sanctions and tense geopolitical situation can lead to another crisis and continuous recession in the near future. Therefore, Russian SMEs have to operate under decreasing consumer demand, resource scarcity, and uncertain and unstable conditions. In this case the issue of survival is highly topical, and strategic management role increases as it aligns firm’s operations.
SMEs are more vulnerable to such environmental changes as economic crisis due to limited resources and competencies (Hilmersson, 2014). Therefore, it negatively affects their performance. However, there are also studies in the literature that propose that SMEs can achieve high growth rates during downturn as they are more flexible compared to large companies (Bartz, Winkler, 2016). Moreover, economic crisis in Russia creates unique context. It requires adaptation of existing management practices to modern conditions in order to ensure survival and high performance.
Research goal
The goal of this research is to develop a theoretical model that explains Russian SMEs’ strategic behavior and its relation to organizational performance during economic crisis. In order to achieve the goal, the following research questions are raised:
• How do Russian SMEs behave during economic crisis?
• How do competitive strategies and exploration-exploitation interplay relate?
• How does strategic behavior of a firm affect its performance during economic crisis?
To attain the research goal, the objectives mentioned below are set.
• Define theoretical and methodological foundation of strategic behavior
• Identify specifics of relationship between competitive strategy, exploitative and explorative practices, and organizational performance
• Analyze crisis’ effects on SMEs and their strategic behavior
• Define relationship between generic strategy, exploitation and exploration, and firm performance during downturn
• Generalize findings and explain them from the point of view of strategic fit concept and resource based theory
• Propose a theoretical model that explains relationship between competitive strategy, exploitative and explorative behavior, and organizational performance during crisis
Theoretical framework
Strategic behavior of business entities falls into strategic management theory, which includes various definitions, approaches to strategy and strategy classifications. For instance, scholars identify corporate-, business- and functional-level strategies, deliberate and emergent strategies, turnaround strategies and many others. According to Tarakci et al. (2018), firms’ strategic behavior is “searching for new strategic initiatives beyond the boundaries of current strategy” (p. 1140). Following the logic of the authors, strategic behavior is understood in this study as an umbrella concept that implies that SMEs implement a generic strategy in combination with exploitative and/or explorative practices in order to identify how organizations adapt to such conditions as economic crisis and how exploration and exploitation are related to business level strategy.
Among multiple strategy typologies Porter’s (1980) competitive strategies framework is chosen as it is a widely accepted and approved approach to test firms’ strategy and its relationship to organizational performance. March (1991) defines exploitation as improvement of existing competencies, processes and practices, while exploration is experimentation with new alternatives. The findings of the research are explained through the concepts of strategic fit and resource based view.
Research method
In order to answer the research questions a multiple case study is conducted by analyzing strategic behavior of Russian SMEs during crisis through interviews and study of secondary data. The sample consists of 5 Russian SMEs that survived the crisis and still operate. They come from various industries.
Overall, the master thesis research is conducted in the form of comparative multiple case study and inductive approach based on preliminary literature analysis on strategic behavior of organizations, interplay between exploration and exploitation and the relationship to organizational performance.
Thesis structure
The paper contains 3 parts. The first chapter reviews theoretical foundation of the study and analyzes the main directions of research on the topic identifying research gaps. The second part describes the crisis state of the Russian economy, research design and methodology that were applied to conduct the study, and results of empirical analysis. Finally, findings, theoretical contribution, managerial implications, limitations and opportunities for further research are discussed in the third chapter.
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