Strategic Orientation and Order of Market Entry of Food Firms

One of the strategic launch decisions is the order of market entry. Adoption of a suitable competitive strategy is dependent on firm's decision on market entry earlier or later than competitors. This research aims to analyze the relationship between order of market entry and firms’ strategic orientation. For this purpose, three strategies have been defined as cost leadership strategy, innovation differentiation strategy and marketing differentiation strategy. In this study, the essential question is whether firms use a different strategy based on their order of market entry? The proposed model has been examined on a sample of 102 manufacturing companies in the food industry using Structural Equation Modeling based on the methodology of Partial Least Squares (PLS). Findings indicate a direct influence of order of market entry on adopting a particular strategy by the firms, so that pioneer companies tend more to use differentiation strategy at two levels of marketing and innovation, while cost leadership is more common among followers.