Relative Strategic Emphasis and Firm-Idiosyncratic Risk: The Moderating Role of Relative Performance and Demand Instability

Firms may allocate scarce resources to two fundamental strategic processes: value creation and value appropriation. The relative investment in these processes (i.e., a firm's relative strategic emphasis) may be associated with firm-idiosyncratic risk. Empirically, a firm's relative strategic emphasis is represented by the difference between its advertising expenditure and its research-and-development expenditure. Using data from 2,403 firms over the period of 2000–2014, the authors find that firms’ relative strategic emphasis on value appropriation versus value creation reduces firm risk, though in a contingent manner. This association is weaker when firms have larger positive or negative relative performance. Furthermore, these contingent associations are stronger when demand instability in an industry is higher. Overall, the results demonstrate that a firm's strategic emphasis should be examined in light of its relative performance, as well as in the context of current market conditions, when making judicious resource allocation decisions.