Strategic Group Analysis by Using Self Organizing Maps

Date

2007-09-05

Author

Budayan, Cenk
Dikmen Toker, İrem
Birgönül, Mustafa Talat

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The aim of strategic group analysis is to find out if clusters of firms that have a similar strategic position exist within an industry or not. Findings of strategic group analysis may further be used to investigate the performance implications of strategic group membership. Using a theoretical conceptual framework applicable for the construction industry and self organizing maps (SOM), the objective of this research is to identify possible strategic groups within the Turkish construction industry. SOM is an unsupervised neural network computational mapping technique that forms an ordered non-linear projection of high dimensional input data items to a low dimensional grid. In this research, by considering the U-matrix and Daveis-Bouldin index, the number of the strategic groups is determined as three. There exist significant performance differences between these three clusters. Major mobility barriers between the first and second strategic groups are determined as the strategic planning style and experience. For the second and third strategic groups, financial resources and managerial capability are found to be the most important mobility barriers. All of the firms in the strategic group that have the highest performance utilize a quality differentiation strategy. Findings of the strategic group analysis can be used by professionals to understand current strategic position of a firm within the competitive environment and formulate strategies to shift to a better performing cluster. Results are country specific and can not be generalized. However, comparative studies can be conducted by using the strategic dimensions and analysis method proposed within this paper.

Subject Keywords

Competitive advantage, Self organizing maps, Strategy

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/77935

Conference Name

23rd Annual Conference on Association of Researchers in Construction Management, ARCOM 2007, (September 2007 through 5 September 2007)

Collections

Department of Civil Engineering, Conference / Seminar

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Citation Formats

C. Budayan, İ. Dikmen Toker, and M. T. Birgönül, “Strategic Group Analysis by Using Self Organizing Maps,” presented at the 23rd Annual Conference on Association of Researchers in Construction Management, ARCOM 2007, (September 2007 through 5 September 2007), Belfast; United Kingdom, 2007, Accessed: 00, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://hdl.handle.net/11511/77935.