The dominant strategies used within

Competitive strategy remains crucial for businesses, as it determines success inthe market. However, exactly what strategy to employ in a company within aspecific industry is a difficult task for practitioners. In the 1980’s, Porter (1985)described three “generic” strategies that would allow a company to be morecompetitive relative to others in the same industry. Although Porter’s (1985)strategy types have become the foundation for much of the business policyresearch in the past twenty years, theorists and researchers alike continue todebate over the appropriateness of these strategies in the current competitiveenvironment bombarded with technology.This research seeks to identify dominant competitive strategies in the SouthAfrican (SA) clothing retail industry and further validate the usage of Porters“generic” strategies. The study expands to understand whether different sizecompanies use similar strategies or not.A structured questionnaire was sent out to clothing retail companies of sample sizeof 145 participants for them to identify the most appropriate competitive method ontheir business. The results from the common factor analysis indicated that threemajor strategies used in the industry namely, lean competitor, mix markets andcore competencies. Further, it was identified that some strategies are associatedwith the size of the company while others are not