Gonçalves, Vítor da ConceiçãoReis, António Palma dosDuque, João2022-02-172022-02-172000Gonçalves, Vítor da Conceição; António Palma dos Reis and João Duque .2000. “Explaining strategic performance in the portuguese financial services industry” . Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão. Departamento de Gestão /Cadernos de Económicas /Documento de trabalho nº 4-00.0874-8470http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/23571This paper aims to identify some economic and financial variables that evaluate the goodness of the strategic choices undertaken in a small economy, when most of the companies are not listed and equity prices are not available. We used the strategic decisions taken by the Portuguese financial services industry (banks and insurance companies). Based on a questionnaire that was sent to all of the Portuguese financial firms, we were able to apply factor analysis to the results to determine two major factors (business environment and strategic choices) to explain corporate performance. When strategic choices were decomposed into several explanatory subvariables we found technology adoption, strategic alliances, geographic based strategies and attention focused on competitive aspects as the main contributors. This conclusion is observable when traditional regression analysis methodology is used as well as when neural networks were built. Our methodology applied to Portuguese data provided findings that support previous research in more developed economies where studies were carried out with market prices data extracted from efficient capital markets.engStrategic PerformanceFinancial ServicesBanking IndustryInsurance IndustryNatural Network AnalysisPortugalworking paper