Information-Sharing and Strategy by Food Industry Firms

This study investigates the strategic behaviour of food industry firms. Its two goals are to:(i) characterise strategies being employed; and(ii) identify distinct approaches to information-sharingData from an interview-format survey of Danish food industry firms are used to characterisestrategy at two levels: 11 “strategic orientations”; each of which is composed of 3-6 of a total57 “strategic actions”. Principal components were identified and two complementary clusteranalysis techniques were used to assemble clusters that are composed of firms either with distinctstrategies, or sets of strategies occurring in distinct combinations.Eight clusters emerge, with reasonable procedural performance. The clusters are distinct in asurprisingly large number of ways, including their strategies for market share, pricing, approachand response to regulation, exports and use of retailers’ own-label brands. Information-sharingstrategies are closely linked to both marketing strategy and regulation response/anticipation.Individual clusters identify distinct sets of behaviour regarding information-sharing up and/ordown the value chain, their approach to quality and other aspects of market segmentation, targetingof export markets, and willingness to compete on price. Clusters’ distinct strategies regardingregulation featured anticipation, as opposed to several diverse means of passing oncompliance costs: to buyers or to sellers. Such activities were linked to information-sharingstrategies in different ways by different clusters.