Determinants of Defender-Prospector Strategic Preferences

Abstract

An exploratory study involving 273 Indian managers from India and Singapore measured the effects of demographic (age, sex, education, nationality, and culture), personality (locus of control, achievement need, and ambiguity intolerance), and work-related (organizational level, tenure, and organizational size) factors on managerial preference as measured by the defender-prospector (Miles & Snow, 1978) continuum. Blockwise regression analysis revealed that younger managers, male managers, and managers with high ambiguity tolerance were significantly more likely to prefer prospector strategies.