Comparative Analysis of Strategic Management Practices Across Leading Industry Sectors

Abstract

Cross-sector success requires an in-depth exploration of how to apply strategic management principles outside their native context. This paper analyzes the strategic management activities in high-performing industries, such as technology, health care, finance, manufacturing, retailing, and energy, revealing generalizable lessons that add value to existing strategic management theory and practice. The study is based on a mixed methods approach combining a structured survey of 290 managers and executives from 60 firms operating in six different sectors with 38 semi-structured interviews with corporate top-management representatives. Strategic capabilities of innovation management, operations excellence, talent optimization, knowledge management, digitalization, and strategic alignment as a whole contribute to superior performance results. Structural Equation Modeling demonstrates the significant impact of strategic capabilities on cross-industry learning (β = 0.61, t = 6.84, p < 0.001), which contributes significantly to firm performance (β = 0.65, t = 7.43, p < 0.001). In addition, institutional context serves as a moderator for both effects (β = 0.24, t = 2.71, p = 0.007), and the type of industry is a standalone predictor of performance optimization mechanisms (β = 0.31, t = 3.52, p = 0.001). Mean scores being relatively high on all strategic dimensions (values ranging from 3.96 to 4.28) indicate that organizations in the sample exhibit sound strategic orientations. Analysis indicates significant correlations between all constructs (0.52 ≤ r ≤ 0.70). This paper presents a multilayer model of strategic management based on cross-sectoral observations, outlines a theoretical framework relating industry driving forces to the performance results, and derives managerial implications for applying cross-sectoral experience to strategic benefit.