An Awareness-Motivation-Capability Perspective of Competitive Nonconformity

Abstract

This study employs the Awareness-Motivation-Capability (AMC) perspective to explore the antecedents and consequences of competitive nonconformity, as perceived by a firm’s top management team (TMT). Analytical results based on a two-stage sample collected from Taiwanese firms and analyzed by the Mplus approach show that a TMT’s perception of its direct rivals’ competitive inertia (awareness) exerts a negative effect on competitive nonconformity while organizational slack (capability) produces a positive effect. Moreover, environmental dynamism and munificence, respectively, positively moderates the effect of competitive nonconformity on firm performance. The study contributes to the field of competitive dynamics, or specifically the AMC perspective, by incorporating the institutional perspective to examine how TMTs’ interpretations of their own and competitors’ socio-psychodynamic processes affect a firm’s deviant behaviors in the competitive contexts.