Generic vs. hybrid competitive strategies

Seminar paper from the year 2015 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1,3, University of Applied Sciences Essen, language: English, abstract: One of the general frameworks, the generic competitive strategies, linked to the topic of competitive strategies, was developed by Michael E. Porter. This framework is related to the hypothesis that only generic strategies in their pure form would lead to above average performance in competition. Besides that, other authors described strategy models consisting of combinations of the generic strategies called combination or hybrid strategies although these theories contradict the hypothesis of porter.

The purpose of this work is to find evidence for the existence and the performance of hybrid strategies in comparison to generic ones.

Therefore the first step is an explanation of competitive advantages. Then the coherence of return on investment and market share is explained. Further competitive advantages are derived from that relationship. After that the generic competitive strategies are annotated as a way to achieve competitive advantages. Besides that the hypothesis of inconsistency concerning hybrid strategies by Porter is explained. In addition the hybrid strategies are elucidated. In the last part of this work evidence for the existence and performance of these strategies shall be proven on an empirical basis by evaluating different studies from different authors.