Strategic models, ownership and organisational changes in the Hungarian food industry

Based on statistical analyses of the financial data, the study showed that organisational instability characterised the period under examination. On average, change of ownership or of management, or even mergers or de-mergers occurred every 3.7 years. The “stable” periods are too short for implementing corporate activities based on an elaborated strategy, granting success both in the medium and long term. We have established the strategic models by which the enterprises could be ranked following the change of ownership or management. From among the four types, the asset depleting and the surviving strategies are definitely disadvantageous, but they accounted for more than 56% of the cases. The frequency of occurrence of the negative strategic models increased remarkably in the second half of the period between 1992 and 2006, while the occurrence of the positive strategies – optimising and push forward – dropped to half. It was established that any available reserves of the Hungarian food industrial structure were exhausted in the actual social and economic environment. Withdrawal of foreign capital from the country will continue. A further decrease of the registered capital, depletion of the assets and deterioration of the competitiveness are unavoidable. In the short term, supporting retention of the foreign capital, while in the medium and long term, encouraging expansion of the small and medium size enterprises may grant the opportunity for improvement.