A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Award
of the Degree of Master of Business Administration in Corporate Management
of Mzumbe University
The business world in recent times has been subjected to the uncertainty resulting to
increasing demand for improvement in business strategies. Being the case, this study
assesses the influence of business strategies on the growth of small and medium audit
firms in Tanzania. Specifically, it focuses on the influence of cost leadership
strategy, differentiation strategy, focus strategies, and referred former employees on
firms’ growth. To address the identified objectives, a descriptive survey research
design was employed to explore both primary and secondary data collected from 125
staffs from 25 Small and Medium audit firms using a survey questionnaire. The data
was quantitatively analyzed, and Probit regression model was used to obtain the
econometric results prior to presentation and discussion of findings. Therefore, the
descriptive results of the current study reveal that, cost leadership strategy,
differentiation strategy, focus strategy, and referred former employees influence the
financial growth of small and medium auditing firms to a greater extent. Also, the
marginal analysis results reveal that, unlike focus strategy, cost leadership strategy
and referred former employees significantly influences financial growth in a positive
manner; while differentiation strategy statistically influence financial growth
negatively. The results of the current study implies that, for a firm to make a rational
decision that boost up its financial growth, a business strategy associated to cost
leadership, differentiation, and referral from former employees are widely crucial.