Quintijn Van Kessel

Generic Strategies for Entrepreneurial Start-up Firms: an Exploratory Insight in the Strategic Choices and Their Conditions for Start-up Smb Firms in Today's Economy Quintijn Van Kessel

This dissertation researches the applicability of the existing literature, theories and models on generic strategies for small entrepreneurial firms in today's economy. All well known literature, theories and models on generic strategies are reviewed. As result two main theories are highlighted as the cornerstones and foundation of today's understanding on generic strategies. These papers were written around 1980, which makes them outdated. Therefore several modern papers are used to make amendments to these older theories and take them into the digital era. The combination of the prior mentioned papers and amendments form the theoretic framework for a new model, which is tested through a research among 219 SMB firms in the Netherlands. The research affirms the applicability of parts of the new model and proposes a reduced model. This reduced model represents the strategic choices of entrepreneurials start-up firms in today's economy. Finally the underlying conditions of the strategic choices are addressed. The research identifies several significant conditions.