Industry influences on strategy reformulation

This paper emphasizes the contribution of ‘borrowed experience’ to strategy reformulation. The industry group is described as a particularly important arena in which niche-related problems and solutions are identified and tested. Industry-wide mistakes in environmental interpretation and strategic response provide interesting evidence of the importance of this contribution to organizational decision making. An industry oriented view of strategy reformulation requires two kinds of research which are rarely conducted today. We need to know more about the pool of strategic concepts which a group of organizations holds in common at any given time. Spender's study of fork-lift truck rental companies is reviewed as an example of this kind of work. A second kind of needed research involves change in strategic concepts over time. A study of the perceived import threat to the appliance industry from 1950 to 1975 is summarized as an example of this second kind of research.