Industry Effects and Strategic Management Research

Adequate controls for potential industry effects have not been used in many strategic management studies. Similarly, strategy researchers have not consistently used adequate conceptualizations of industrial environments in the design of their empirical work. Findings derived from research with such design and execution deficiencies may result in misleading interpretations. Forty of the most frequently cited empirical strategy studies published between 1980 and 1988 are identified and analyzed. The results of this analysis indicate how researchers have approached the phenomenon of industry effects in the conduct of strategic management research. Methods for controlling for industry effects and the implications of the arguments presented herein for future research and theory building are discussed in thefinal sections of the paper.