In a situation in which the importance of competitive strategies for the survival of companies is growing due to the recent low growth caused by COVID-19 and changes in the external environment of non-face-to-face daily life, domestic small and medium...
In a situation in which the importance of competitive strategies for the survival of companies is growing due to the recent low growth caused by COVID-19 and changes in the external environment of non-face-to-face daily life, domestic small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will be deeply concerned about competitive
strategies tailored to each company's circumstances to improve management performance.
In this study, the original competition strategy proposed by Michael E porter was applied to domestic SMEs to demonstrate how each strategy actually affects management performance, and to further study the moderate effect of management consulting margin factors in relation to competition strategy and management performance.
For the empirical analysis of this study, an online survey was conducted on executives and employees of small and medium-sized enterprises, and the questionnaire was divided into three groups: competition strategy, management performance, and management consulting.
Empirical analysis shows that cost leadership strategy and differentiation strategy among competitive strategies have a positive effect on both financial and non-financial performance, and focus strategy has no significant effect on both financial and non-financial performance. In addition, an analysis of the moderate effect of management consulting on the effect of competition strategies on management performance showed that cost leadership strategy and differentiation strategy had a moderate effect on financial performance, and focus strategy had no significant impact on financial performance.
Non-financial performance was also shown to have no moderate effect on cost leadership strategy, differentiation strategy or focus strategy. In cost leadership strategy and differentiation strategy that are shown to have moderate effects, cost leadership strategy was shown to have an effect on the financial performance positive (+), and differentiation strategy was shown to have an effect on negative (-). This is
interpreted as the additional expenditure on qualitative differentiation of products and services has had a negative effect on financial performance in the short term, and further research needs to be conducted considering the appropriate period of time in which management consulting is reflected in financial performance.
The implications of this study are as follows.
First, as a result of this study, the cost leadership strategy and differentiation strategy have a significant positive (+) effect on the financial and non-financial performance of SMEs. So the CEO of SMEs must promote a competitive strategy that is appropriate for the company, taking into account the internal and external environment of the company to improve management performance.
Second, in this study, management consulting on the pursuit of competitive strategy was confirmed to have a moderating effect on the improvement of the financial performance of SMEs. Therefore, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups and the Korean Management Technology Guidance Society should actively promote the incorporation of management consulting into SMEs to improve the financial performance of SMEs.
Third, SMEs need to actively make efforts to improve financial performance through management consulting by external experts for additional synergy effects on management performance by pursuing their own competitive strategy.