Effect of community characteristics, business environment, and competitive strategies on rural retail business performance

摘要

Interrelationships among community characteristics, business environment, competitive strategies, and business per- formance of small businesses were inves- tigated. A mailed survey was used to col- lect data from 456 retailers in 48 rural communities across 12 states. Using com- munity as the unit of analyses(n = 48), significant relationships were found among community measures of market size, change in market size and purchas- ing power, use of competitive strategies, and the business environment. Re- gression analysis revealed that change in population and the length of time a store was in the community influenced strate- gy selection. Business environment was an indicator of community retail per- formance.