This research paper investigates the relationship between competitive strategies andnew venture performance in the transitional economy of the Thai food industry. It aimsto integrate the marketing and new venture literatures by understanding how new venturescompete via competitive strategies to achieve financial and market success. The mainobjective of the study is to conceptualize the dimensions of marketing strategies. Througha comprehensive literature review and field interviews, five dimensions of competitivestrategies adopted by new ventures in Thailandûs transitional economy are identified:product innovation, marketing differentiation, market breadth, marketing alliance, andpolitical strategy. These dimensions are further classified as competitive marketingstrategies (comprising the first three) and relationship-based marketing strategies(comprising the last two). Based on strategic contingency and environmental determinismperspectives, a theoretical framework is developed to investigate the relationship betweencompetitive strategies and new venture performance. In the framework, it is proposedthat (1) competitive strategies have a unique contribution to new venture performanceand that (2) the effectiveness of competitive strategies is moderated by environmentalfactors and relationship-based competitive strategies. Empirical results show that the fivedimensions of competitive strategies do exist in new ventures. However, the resultsindicate that competitive strategies make significant contributions to new ventureperformance only on a particular factor. Moreover, consistent with the contingencyhypotheses and the literature, environmental turbulence is shown to moderate the effectiveness of all of the competitive strategies. Innovative marketing and innovationproduct differentiations tend to have stronger influence on the firmsû performance.Moreover, the results suggest significant links between environmental macro, marketinghostility, technology hostility, and low cost leadership strategy that significantly effecttotal profits increment.