وضعیت رقابتی و عملکرد عرضه اولیه عمومی در شرکت های با فن آوری پیشرفته

Small to medium sized technology firms significantly impact the national and world economy and it is paramount that the best-managed firms have long term success. Empirical analysis must determine the competitive posture that will enhance performance and increase success rates for this population. This research examines the competitive posture of 168 high technology initial public offering (IPO) firms from 1992 and their short term and long term performance. Content analysis of the IPO prospectus provides the source of data for the variables. The research supports the hypotheses that pioneering competitive posture outperform others in the population.

Several empirical studies have emerged in recent years to validate the many concepts on competitive posture in technology intensive industries (Hampson, 1994; Zahra and Covin, 1994; Wilbon, 1999a). However, the performance implications of competitive posture in small to medium sized high tech firms are not well documented. Zahra and Covin (1994) found that technology policies varied across different business strategies and other empirical investigations addressed this issue by designing studies to understand the relationship among strategic behavior, technology strategy, and firm performance (e.g. McCann 1991). In addition, most of the empirical studies found in the literature were cross sectional and failed to investigate the long term implications of formulating an effective competitive posture. Most of these studies analyzed large, well-established organizations prompting several to promote the need for more research on strategy in new ventures (Dodgson and Rothwell, 1991; Zahra, 1996a). Further, some of these studies considered competitive posture as only a subset of technology strategy and not as a single dimension. Considering that good choices allow new high-tech ventures to position themselves in the market place (Shan, 1990; Zahra and Covin, 1994) while poor choices can undermine their performance and survival (McCann, 1991), there is a need for more research on posture and for this population. In technology intensive industries, smaller businesses tend to be the driving force behind the innovations and some have been pioneers that have reshaped business strategies. Although the literature has traditionally placed a premium on the pioneer in the competitive posture debate, this study attempts to further contribute to the discourse by considering other aspects of firm posture that may contribute to better performance. Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, the primary purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between competitive posture and long term performance in small–medium sized high-tech enterprises. In sum, this research posits that consideration of a firm’s competitive posture is essential to enhancing its performance.

This study looked at high technology industries to determine whether competitive posture influenced performance. The results of this analysis indicates that having a more pioneering posture matters with regards to short-term IPO performance in high technology firms. This result generally agrees with Zahra’s (1996) analysis of biotechnology firms who found a positive relationship between pioneering and sales growth, market share, and return on assets. It also supports Wilbon (1999b) who found that pioneering firms in software industries have a better IPO stock performance using the Tobin’s Q measure. On the other hand this study does not find a relationship between competitive posture and post-IPO performance. Although pioneers outperformed followers in the study relative to post-IPO performance, the other relationships were not significant. This research contributes to the literature in several ways. Wilbon (1999b) looked at IPO performance only, while this research considers not only the short-term parameters of initial investor reaction, but also investigates post-IPO performance. As stated earlier, the traditional cross sectional measures used in management research provides only a snap shot of the performance of these firms. The research in this area must move toward a more longitudinal view to understand the dynamics of the technology strategy and performance interaction. Also, the initial IPO performance parameter used here is more robust, taking into consideration more than just the stock price to book value ratio used in other similar research. Second, this research looks at competitive posture in firms across all sections of high technology. This has not been the case in some past research. For example, Zahra (1996) considered technology strategy and performance in only those firms in biotechnology industries and Wilbon (1999b) looked at only those firms in computer based industries. Finally, the sample size used in this research exceeded that of other research found in the literature, providing more robustness to the statistical analysis. As Madique and Patch (1988) suggest, the most fundamental choice of a technology firm is determining whether to be a pioneer or follower. This point is true regardless of firm size and, based on this research, particularly true for IPO firms. Considering that the focus of investors is to maximize investments, pioneering firms tend to provide the best opportunity to do so. Although the risk is proportionately higher for pioneering high tech firms, the investor realizes that the payoff may also be substantially higher if the firm is successful. Accordingly, investors will value pioneering firms and those with leadership potential greater than firms that pursue a low risk strategy that aims to copy others. This study demonstrates that understanding the relationship between competitive posture and firm performance may assist IPO firms with developing better strategies that contribute to increasing performance, at least as perceived by the stock market.