廠商的策略該與競爭者相似，或與競爭者不同？相似或相異都有其道理，與競爭者不同有助於發展競爭優勢以贏得市場競爭；然而與產業同儕相似可取得正當性，免於社會各界的質疑、挑戰與懲罰。策略平衡觀點主張廠商應平衡兩者，保持有點像又有點不像最有助於績效。本論文基於此，進行兩個研究試圖探討廠商該採取相似或相異的策略。研究一以大陸155個製造產業進行實證，結果發現僅有69個(44.5%)產業支持此觀點，進一步分析發現在低度競爭及多個策略群組存在的產業中，中等的相似性未必有好績效。研究二則探討當產業中存在兩群廠商，一群是既有的本地廠商，另一群是新進入市場的外商，對於急需當地社會接受(正當性)的外商而言，應與本地廠商相似，或與其他外商相似，亦或不同於兩群廠商？以大陸製造業外商的實證結果，外商在策略上應與本地廠商相似，並與其他外商維持中等程度的相似性，將最有益於績效。本論文不僅有助於策略平衡觀點知識基礎之鞏固、累積與發展，並提供了此脈理論未來的研究方向。 / Should firms behave differently from or similarly to competitors? Being distinctive helps develop competitive advantages and win competition. Being similar contributes to gaining legitimacy and protecting firms from public suspicions, challenges, and punishments. Strategic balance perspective argues that firms should take a balanced approach and maintain a moderate level of similarity to obtain better performance. Based on this perspective, this dissertation includes two studies to address some problems inhibiting the development of this stream of research. In study 1, we found that 69 of 155 (44.5%) manufacturing industries provide supportive evidence. Further analysis suggested that moderate level of similarity is not beneficial to firm performance in industries with low level of competition or with multiple strategic groups. In the second study, we focused on contexts where consist of two groups of firms, local firms and foreign firms. We examined the influences of positioning strategies for foreign firms who desperately seek local acceptance and found that foreign firms should be strategically similar to local firms and maintain moderate level of similarity to other foreign firms. This dissertation not only has contributions on consolidation, accumulation, and advancement of knowledge base of strategic balance perspective, but also has several implications for future research