The Applicability of Miles and Snow’s Strategy Typology in a Developing Economy: the case of Ghana

Abstract

Firm level strategies have widely been considered to be among the main drivers of organizational performance and survival means for sustainable competitive advantage. The literature on strategic management has an extensive number of publications on strategy typologies. Among them, the Mile and Snow orientations stand out. The lack of focus on its relevance in developing economies, such as Ghana's, is concerning, considering the abundance of study on the topic in advanced countries, which has yielded conflicting conclusions. With this research, we want to fill gaps in our understanding of the strategy's potential use and its impact on the performance of insurance firms in Ghana. 250 participants participated in the study, which used a quantitative research approach. The results revealed a general positive and significant relation between strategic orientations and firm performance with prospector being the best performing strategy. Analyzers and defenders however, did not have any significant effect on performance. It was concluded that Miles and Snow strategy typology is prevent in Ghana and that managers should carefully adopt the best strategy for sustainable competitive advantage.

Keywords: Mile and Snow strategy typology, developing economy, performance, Ghana insurance industry

DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/17-1-08

Publication date: January 30th 2025