Pure versus hybrid competitive strategies in the forest sector: Performance implications

• We compare firm performance impacts among pure and hybrid strategies.
• Firms pursuing a differentiation strategy are the highest performers.
• A hybrid strategy is not a more effective choice for improved performance.
• A hybrid strategy may be better realized as ambidexterity further institutionalizes.

The extant forest sector strategy research rests on Porter's classic dictum that successful firms pursue a singular strategy. A growing research stream on organizational ambidexterity, however, challenges this traditional view and recommends the pursuit of hybrid strategies, a phenomenon that we note existing among forest sector firms. In this study, we set out to compare the financial performance of firms pursuing a singular or pure strategy and those pursuing hybrid strategies. We compare whether a differentiation, overall low cost, or hybrid strategy yields higher financial performance. We first deduce our study hypotheses and then test each using data from 441 US-based manufacturing firms drawn from multiple sub-sectors. We find no evidence that a hybrid strategy is a more effective choice towards enhanced firm performance than a singular strategy. We also find that firms pursuing a differentiation strategy are the highest performers while there is little difference in performance of firms pursuing other strategies.