Strategic Groups of the Open Isapres Market and their Relationship with Performance: The Case of Chile

Abstract

The health care system in Chile is among those sectors that the current government intends to intervene in through reforms. In this case, the decision makers and the public management need to know the competitive dynamic of the open Isapres market. Considering this situation, the theory of strategic groups was used to analyze the open Isa- pres market. Through an exploratory factorial analysis it was concluded that the strategic dimensions that deter- mine the competitive behavior of open Isapres are human capital, advertising and scope. Once the strategic variables (or dimensions) were determined, the K Cluster measure was used to group together the 7 open Isapres that participate in the market. The open Isapres are grouped into 5 conglomerates (or strategic groups) based on the positioning they have in each one of the strategic dimensions. Finally, with the Pearson correlation analysis it is concluded that resource investment in advertising does not have an impact on the performance of the open Isapres, that the resource investment in sources of human capital impact the market participation and the financial indicators, and that the decisions that are adopted in the sources of scope have an impact on the market participation, margin contributor and financial indicators