Comparison with other empirical studies

In the introduction of this thesis (section 1.1) it is argued that a comparison with empirical studies in the field of strategic decision making in other branches

characterised by large firms is complicated by several aspects. First, strategic decision making at large firms is organizational decision making. Therefore, a large body of empirical studies focus at the impact of organizational structure and processes on aspects of strategic decision making. Second, the focus on organizational aspects complicate research with respect to the content of strategic decision making

processes, which is the subject of this thesis. Third, it is almost impossible to obtain a sufficiently large number of observations of large firms for performing statistical analysis, because the analysis of the strategic decision making processes within a large firm is a time consuming process. However, a number of empirical studies deals with small firms in other than agricultural branches, which are useful for

benchmarking. In this section results of this thesis are compared with results in a few recent empirical studies, in order to determine the extent to which the results of this thesis can be generalized.

Both Bhattacharya and Bloch (2004) and Rogers (2004) have investigated the determinants of innovation in small to medium sized firms in Australia. Their

research method is quite similar to the method used in chapter 2 of this thesis. The only corresponding variable with the study of Rogers (2004) and this thesis is firm size. Firm size has a positive impact on innovation. However, repetition of the

analysis per firm size category shows that firm size has no impact per category (which is no surprise) and that determinants of innovation vary with firm size. Therefore, the direct impact of firm size cannot be derived from the results of Rogers (2004).

Bhattacharya and Bloch (2004) also report a positive impact of firm size on innovation. Given the fact that the variability in firm size in the samples used by Rogers (2004) and Bhattacharya and Bloch (2004) is much higher than in the sample used in chapter 2, the results of both studies don’t violate the results of chapter 2. Bhattacharya and Bloch (2004) also include profitability in their study as an explanatory variable and find no impact. This result contradicts to the results of chapter 2, in which a positive relationship is reported, and is in accordance with the hypothesis of Bhattacharya and Bloch (2004).

Becchetti and Trovato (2002) have investigated the determinants of firm growth in small and medium sized firms. Their results indicate that small surviving firms have higher than average growth potential, corresponding to the results reported in chapter 2 regarding firm growth in horticulture protected cultivation. Their finding that scarce availability of external finance (corresponding to the variable ‘solvency’) limits firm growth is not confirmed in chapter 2.

The positive relationship between innovation and firm performance (chapter 3) finds support by the study of Verhees and Meulenberg (2004), dealing with market orientation, innovativeness, product innovation and performance in small rose

growing firms.

Van Gelderen et al. (2000) investigated the performance of small business start-ups, which links to the research on the family-firm life cycle (chapter 4). Important differences are that (1) they limit themselves to the entry stage of the life cycle, (2) they use strategies as explaining variables and (3) these strategies are process strategies, contrary to the content strategies used in chapter 4. Examples of process strategies are reactive strategy and complete planning strategy. Examples of content strategies are low cost strategy and differentiation strategy. However, the results of Van Gelderen et al. (2000) do not disagree with the results of chapter 4. Their findings are that poorly performing business owners employ a reactive strategy, which has a negative impact on firm performance, resulting in a higher likelihood to end the firm. This corresponds with the results of chapter 4 with regard to the firms in the exit stage. The result that high performing business owners employ a more top- down (complete planning) approach corresponds with the fact that firms after the

growth stage pay attention to fine tuning of the production process. Comparison of the approach applied in chapter 4 with the study of Kazanjian and Drazin (1990) shows that the way the firm life cycle is made operational depends on characteristics of the branch. Their study is aimed at start-ups of new firms, based on new technologies. The determination in which stage the firms are depends on the problems the firms are faced to. They focus their study to consequences of start-up, growth and stabilization for centralization and formalization of the decision making process. New business start-ups are rare in horticulture and do generally not depend on new technologies. The stage in which they are is largely based on the firm structure.

The study of Beal (2000) is most comparable with this thesis, although his emphasis is on the process of environmental scanning rather than on content.

The process of environmental scanning deals with the use of information sources and the frequency of environmental scanning. The content of environmental scanning deals with the topics, which are scanned, and the resulting perceptions. Beal (2000) explicitly takes the importance of the firm life cycle stage into account. His multi-item index to detect the stage the firm is currently operating in, has been based on

perceptions of managers or CEOs. His result that obtaining information on several aspects of specific environmental sectors facilitates alignment between some competitive strategies and environments is consistent with the result reported in chapter 5 that future plans are consistent with perceptions of the environment and that implemented plans are consistent with firm strategies. This finding gives rise to the relationship hypothesised in chapter 5 that perceptions have to be analysed in-depth, corresponding to the firm strategy in order to decide which plans have to be

implemented.

The comparison of results in this thesis with the above mentioned studies does not provide a clear answer to the question about the degree to which the results of this thesis can be generalized. First, the results of chapter 2 are not fully consistent with the results reported in the studies discussed above. However, review of the literature about innovation and firm growth shows that different results in comparable studies is the rule rather than the exception. Second, few studies focus on the content of

decision making (relationships between the content of strategies, actual perceptions and decisions), but focus on decision making process. The differences between both approaches complicate a comparison between these studies. Third, although strategic management in horticulture is not a priori different from firms in other branches,

specific features of horticulture, like market structure and firm size make provides this branch rather unique characteristics. However, the comparison made in this section indicates that the results of this thesis provide additional insigths.