The relationship between diversification strategy and firm's performance has been studied in a broad number of empiric investigations. The aim of this paper is to analyse this relationship in the Spanish economy, in which firms are smaller in size and less diversified than companies examined in previous studies, most of them on U.S. firrns. The results do not support the hypothesis of the superiority of related diversification: no diversified firms outperformed the rest over the whole period analized (1987-1990).

Palabras clave: diversificación de la empresa española, diversificación corporativa, estrategia de diversificación, resultados empresariales.