Positioning school approach that gives prominence to the effect of positioning and environmental powers in industry and resource-based approach that emphasize the importance of firm’s resource, capabilities and competences are two basic approaches that express firms’ performance differences in strategic management field. Which one of these basic approaches will be chosen occupies an important place in strategic management subjects. Purpose of this study is to reveal preferences of managers and accordingly firms about strategic management approaches in branch of Turkish industry and to determine whether positioning school approach or resource-based approach is efficient and predominant in success of firms from the viewpoints of managers. The research was carried out upon the first 500 big industrial enterprises and second 500 big industrial enterprises carrying on their business in industrial sector in Turkey as published by Istanbul Chamber of Industry (ISO). As a result of the analysis of the acquired data, it has been precipitated that in Turkey, managers of the biggest 1000 industrial enterprises, accordingly firms, adopt positioning school approach.

Keywords: Strategic Management, Strategic Management Approaches, Positioning School Approach, Resource-Based Approach