Competitive Imitation Research Articles

The Peer Effects of Residents’ Carbon Emission Behavior: An Empirical Analysis in China

The responsible low-carbon behavior of household residents is a crucial factor for the purpose of achieving carbon neutrality in the economy and society. Based on the peer effects theory, this study constructs a fixed-effects model to empirically analyze the existence, heterogeneity, and action mechanism of peer effects in household carbon emission behavior, which uses panel data from the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS). The results indicate that peer effects have a significantly positive impact on residents’ carbon emission behavior, and the results are verified by the robustness test in various ways. Further mechanism tests show that peer effects influence carbon emission behavior through methods including the learning imitation mechanism and competitive imitation mechanism. In addition, we find that peer effects have different impacts on residents’ carbon emission behavior in varying regions, income levels, education levels, and ages groups. This study aims to embed residents’ carbon emission behavior into the strong relationship between surrounding groups, raise consumers low-carbon awareness through publicity, guidance, and group interaction, form a low-carbon atmosphere for the whole society, and contribute to the realization of Sustainable Development Goals.

Competitive imitation and corporate innovation in private enterprises

The private economy has always been an important force in promoting the development of China's national economy. The unfair competition faced by private enterprises (PEs) compared to that faced by state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in many areas will induce the competitive imitation of PEs. We find that PEs' competitive imitation strategy significantly inhibits innovation, while increased agency costs and reduced R&D investment are the two main mechanisms for this inhibitory effect. Furthermore, we find that this effect is stronger in firms with lower growth rate, worse information environment and stronger product market competition. However, the competitive imitation of PEs will eventually damage their innovation efficiency.

Protecting Intellectual Property in International Expansion: Preparing an Innovation-Based SME

A key concern among innovation-based SMEs is to protect their intellectual property (IP) as they grow internationally. To explore the challenges such resource-constrained firms face, we conducted action research at a technology-based SME that aspired to expand internationally. Through collaborative and periodic interventions, we sought to help managers of the organization work around the issues that surfaced while preparing to internationalize further. Our collaboration led us to examine isolating mechanisms, such as rapid international expansion, that the SME could deploy to pre-empt competitive imitation of their innovative products and processes, especially as their IP is not protected legally (e.g., by patents). Results point to inevitable identified tensions and paradoxes, leading us to approaches and practices the firm can adopt.

The industry peer effect of enterprise ESG performance: the moderating effect of customer concentration

This study empirically explores the industry peer effect on enterprise environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance, and the impact of customer concentration on this effect. The results show that the ESG performance of listed firms has a significant industry peer effect and that customer concentration can inhibit the industry peer effect. After a series of robustness and endogeneity tests, the conclusions remained robust. Further analysis demonstrated that “management reputation consideration” and “competitive imitation” are potential drivers of the ESG performance peer effect. Moreover, customer concentration inhibited the industry peer effect on ESG performance by reducing agency costs and easing financing constraints. Heterogeneity analysis suggests that the inhibitory effect of customer concentration on ESG peer effect is more salient when the enterprise governance level is relatively poor and the market position is relatively low. The economic consequence test demonstrates that the industry peer effect on enterprise ESG performance reduces firm value, while customer concentration increases firm value by mitigating the ESG performance peer effect. This study reveals the industry interaction aggregation phenomenon of enterprises’ ESG performance and its economic consequences, providing significant empirical evidence for enterprises to make reasonable ESG investment decisions.

Does firms' ESG information disclosure have contagion effect? Evidence from China

AbstractThe increasing concern of the society on environmental issues has driven research on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues. Among the existing academic studies on the influencing factors of ESG disclosure, few scholars have investigated the contagion effect of ESG disclosure, that is, whether the ESG disclosure behavior of peer firms affect the ESG disclosure of individual firms. Therefore, based on dynamic competition theory and social learning theory, this paper examines the contagion effect of ESG information disclosure from the perspective of peer relationship networks, using a sample of A‐share listed firms in China from 2009 to 2021. The study finds that there is a contagion effect in the level of firms' ESG disclosure, that is, when other firms in the same industry have a higher average ESG disclosure level, individual firm also tend to have a higher ESG disclosure level; and at the same time, this contagion effect is more pronounced among firms with state‐owned nature, a high degree of marketization, financing constraints and environmental uncertainty. By exploring the mechanism of its effect, we find that the contagion effect of ESG disclosure mainly originates from the competitive imitation mechanism and the information acquisition imitation mechanism. This paper theoretically enriches the research on the factors influencing the level of ESG disclosure and the contagion effect of inter‐firm behavior, and practically provides a reference for regulators to effectively supervise and improve firms' level of ESG disclosure.

Venture Aging: A Process Model of Legitimacy, Routinization, and Competitor Imitation of Venture Innovation Capabilities

This study proposes a process model that delineates how venture aging results in legitimacy and routinization, and subsequent venture performance. This model addresses the gap between new venture literature and organizational management literature. The resource-based view of the firm and competitive rivalry models are used to develop the theory behind the process model. The model shows that venture aging enhances legitimacy, which is shown to increase competitor attacks and imitation attempts of venture innovation capabilities. Venture routinization increases the inimitability of a venture’s innovation capabilities, which decreases the success of competitors trying to imitate the new venture. The resulting effects on venture performance identify approaches that entrepreneurs can take to increase their chances of successfully navigating the venture aging process. The model assists researchers in further developing the competitive rivalry literature by explaining how factors such as awareness, motivation, and capability of competitors influence venture success.

Competitive Imitation Strategy for New Product-Market Success

Imitation is a viable strategic choice for potential market entrants, but not all imitations help the entrants gain competitive advantages or lead to success in the new product market. This study proposes a competitive imitation strategy for a new product market by which an imitator may achieve superior performance. This imitation strategy is framed in a sequence that links a market entrant’s purposeful imitation of its competitors to its efforts of developing differentiated products and mobilizing entry resources, which should ultimately lead to new product success. We test our conceptual framework with survey data of South Korean enterprises. The empirical results demonstrate that a mere imitation of competitors’ moves for new products doesn’t yield any abnormal returns unless the imitation is mediated by the firm’s development of differentiated new products and mobilization of existing entry resources. A summary managerial implication is that imitation can be a winning strategy when firms actively imitate during new product development and capitalize on the related advantages, for example, offer a differentiated product with the full utilization of their endowed entry resources.

Cause and Effect Relationships of Internal and External Technological Learning Mechanisms in the Iranian Renewable Energy Firms

In developing countries, firms usually have limited capital, infrastructure, and institutions for technological learning. Hence, knowledge of firms about external and internal learning mechanisms as well as using other firm’s experiences lead to reduced cost and time of technological learning. Present paper contributes to renewable energy firm’s knowledge by analyzing cause and effect relationships of internal and external technological learning mechanisms. For this purpose, internal and external technological learning mechanisms were extracted by literature review. Then, cause and effect relationships of learning mechanisms in Iranian renewable energy firms were investigated by the DEMATEL method. The results indicate that firms should use a combination of internal and external learning mechanisms to enhance their technological capability. Moreover, intramural research and development, trial and error, reverse engineering of competitor’s products, imitation of competitors, and licensing agreement have been the most frequent technological learning mechanisms used by Iranian renewable energy firms. These are the issues that need to be addressed by renewable energy firms and policymakers in developing countries.

Inventory positions in US manufacturing: A competitive dynamics approach

We investigate competitive interactions in the context of inventory management by examining how the leader firm's past inventory management affects the challenger firm's current inventory management and how the challenger firm's past inventory management affects the leader firm's current inventory management. The leader and the challenger firms in an industry are respectively the firms holding the highest and second highest market share. We also investigate the moderating effects of market share gap and industry growth on this dynamic relationship. Based on a sample of 4897 firm-year observations in the U.S. manufacturing sector and covering the period 1987–2015, we find that the inventory management decisions of a firm are significantly affected by the actions of its main rival. This dynamic relationship, triggered as a result of competitive imitation in inventory management, is found to be significantly moderated by market share differences between the two firms. We also offer a mathematical model that illustrates the competitive action-reaction cycle regarding inventory decisions, and we extend the existing literature on competitive dynamics to recognize strategic and tactical inventory decisions.

The key role of historic path-dependency and competitor imitation on the electricity sector low-carbon transition

Market players in the energy sector transition are heterogeneous, have bounded rationality and are influenced by their own past failures, as well as imitating the successes of their competitors. However this agent heterogeneity and complex behaviour in investment choices is not taken into account in traditional energy-economy models used to inform energy sector policies. By using BRAIN-Energy, an agent-based model of investment in electricity generation, which enables to study the impact of actors’ heterogeneous characteristics on the transition pathways of the UK, German and Italian electricity sectors, this paper shows how historic path-dependency in investment choices displaces low-carbon in favour of high-carbon investments under a weak regulatory framework. By contrast, imitation can help the diffusion of renewable technologies, through a self-reinforcing positive feedback when government subsidies to low-carbon investments are in place.

Imitation of Competitors in the Digital World as an Abuse of Dominant Position

Imitation of Competitors in the Digital World as an Abuse of Dominant Position

Garcilaso’s ‘Sedes ad cyprias’: A New Source and a Re-appraisal

Modern criticism has often neglected or been uncomplimentary about Garcilaso’s third Latin ode ‘Sedes ad cyprias’. This article presents a previously unidentified source for the poem, Erasmus’ translation of one of Lucian’s Dialogues of the Gods, and in the light of this offers a re-appraisal of Garcilaso’s poetic skill in the ode. Firstly, I discuss Garcilaso’s metrification and transformation of Erasmus’ prose translation. I go on to argue that his eclectic allusions to other Classical texts and the major changes he makes to the beginning and end of the source serve as part of a strategy of competitive imitation through which he tries to outdo the comic effect of Lucian’s dialogue.

Entrepreneurial copycats: A resource orchestration perspective on the link between extra-industry business model imitation and new venture growth

This study draws on resource orchestration theory to develop and test a framework that explains when the imitation of business models from other industries increases new venture growth. We propose that extra-industry business model imitation enhances growth when extra-industry business models are bundled together with novel technologies, and when founders possess the necessary industry experience to orchestrate these resource combinations effectively. Using a unique multi-source, time-lagged dataset of 122 Swiss technology ventures from four industries, we find support for our theoretical model and discuss its implications for research at the intersection of business models, competitive imitation, and resource orchestration.

4.0 IR, Oversize Economy and the Extinction of Mammoth Companies

The 4th Industrial Revolution (4.0 IR), fundamentally disrupts the technologies characterizing the first three industrial revolutions. In the nowadays global management phase (competitive globalisation), the business model based on excess supply (i.e., over-supply model, in which competitors face volatile production and progressively falling prices) is now inadequate for aggressive global corporate policies. Producing more and wasting less require today a new global business model based on the progressive disappearance of marginal global companies (oversize economy, characterized by lower production and sales costs, and by large company size). Standardized production has now fallen into a crisis that drives companies towards 4.0 technologies i.e., in the pursuit of new conditions of efficiency that are more open to innovation, towards productive flexibility, and even towards competitive imitation.

Concealing or revealing? Alternative paths to profiting from innovation

According to the resource-based view, knowledge concealing is fundamental for firms’ ability to prevent competitor imitation and profit from innovation. Open innovation scholars have recently challenged this idea, proposing instead that knowledge revealing can foster industry-wide collaboration and enhance the value of innovation. Reconciling these two perspectives requires a more detailed understanding about the tradeoffs between concealing and revealing. In this paper, we therefore develop a model that outlines the effects of knowledge revealing on the (i) value of innovation, (ii) the price of products stemming from the innovation, (iii) the comparative cost of innovation, as well as the relevant moderators of these effects. Our analysis shows that knowledge revealing may have a positive effect on profits when there are strong indirect network effects; when firms are protected from imitation by causal ambiguity, complementary assets, and intellectual property; and when the innovating firm faces high technological uncertainty. Implications for the resource-based view and research on open innovation are outlined.

DISTRIBUTION CHANNEL INTENSITY AMONG TABLE WATER PRODUCERS IN NIGERIA

Planning for and making reasonable decisions regarding reaching the target market with an organization’s product is a critical task on the part of management, which involves a careful evaluation and selection of its channel structure and intensity.This study therefore examines distribution channel intensity among table water producers in Edo State, Nigeria. The focus of the study is to ascertain the variables that significantly predict distribution intensity among the firms in the table water industry in Edo State. The study seeks to proffer answer to fundamental question of why brands within a single category of a given consumer good differ significantly in their distribution intensity. Using a survey research design, the data used for this study were obtained by taking a sample of 110 table water firms within the three senatorial districts in the State. The data obtained were presented and analyzed using different statistical tools such as mean and multiple regression through Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22 software. Findings revealed that manufacturers’ target focus, manufacturers’ support program, brand quality and level of firm’s technological advancement were significant predictors of distribution channel intensity among the industrial players in table water industry in the State. Based on the findings, the study recommended that table water firms within the State can secure a competitive edge over their fellow counterpart in the industry by designing an optimal distribution intensity that will meet up their marketing objectives. It is also recommended that the adoption of modern technology in form of online sales is an efficient way of sales and distribution which could be used to enhance their distribution techniques if there is a need to cut down on middle men due to increased cost. The study concluded that optimal distribution intensity could be achieved not by mere imitation of competitors but through a careful definition and analyses of target focus, support programs, quality of their brand as well as the level of technological advancement of the firms.

Red Queen Competitive Imitation in the U.K. Mobile Phone Industry

This paper uses Red Queen competition theory to examine competitive imitation. We conceptualize imitative actions by a focal firm and its rivals along two dimensions: imitation scope, which describes the extent to which a firm imitates a wide range (as opposed to a narrow range) of new product technologies introduced by rivals; and imitation speed, namely the pace at which it imitates these technologies. We argue that focal firm imitation scope and imitation speed drive performance, as well as imitation scope and speed decisions by rivals, which in turn influence focal firm performance. We also argue that the impact of this self-reinforcing Red Queen process on firms’ actions and performance is contingent on levels of product technology heterogeneity—defined as the extent to which the industry has multiple designs, resulting in product variety. We test our hypotheses using imitative actions by mobile phone vendors and their sales performance in the U.K. from 1997 to 2008.

Red Queen Competitive Imitation in the UK Mobile Phone Industry

The paper uses Red Queen theory to examine imitative competition. We conceptualize imitative actions by focal firms and their rivals along two dimensions: imitation scope which describes the extent to which firms imitate their rivals’ technologies, and imitation speed, the pace at which they imitate technologies that have been adopted by their rivals. We argue that focal firm imitation scope and imitation speed drive performance, and focal firm performance drives imitation scope and speed decisions by rivals, which in turn influences imitation scope and speed of the focal firm. We also argue that the impact of this self-reinforcing Red Queen process on firms’ actions and performance, is contingent on levels of product technology heterogeneity - defined as the extent to which the industry has multiple designs and has high product variety. We derive hypotheses about the impact of imitation scope and speed on focal firm performance and rivals’ response, as well as hypotheses on the moderating impact of product technology heterogeneity. We use data from the UK mobile phone industry from 1997 to 2008 to test these hypotheses.

MISSION: POSSIBLE BUT SENSITIVE — KNOWLEDGE PROTECTION MECHANISMS SERVING DIFFERENT PURPOSES

Innovations have the potential to create value by generating rents (primary appropriability), or they can be used as background knowledge for further innovations and value creation (generative appropriability). Because these possibilities exist, organisations need to make strategic decisions on knowledge sharing with their partners in collaborative innovation. In best cases, primary and generative appropriability are complementarities rather than alternatives: Knowledge sharing with partners for new innovation could be made safer using formal and informal isolating appropriability mechanisms that improve controllability, thereby preserving rent generation possibilities and simultaneously allowing safe knowledge exchange. We use a quantitative sample of 209 Finnish firms to examine how different formal and informal appropriability mechanisms relate to value capture and creation, and whether these relationships are affected by the strategic goal to reduce imitation of competitors or to improve safe knowledge sharing to partners.

Business Model Imitation and New Venture Performance

Research on competitive imitation has become increasingly important in strategic management. To date, imitative processes have been studied independently and within industries only. This paper builds arguments on the direct and interaction effects of two different forms of competitive imitation – intra- and extraindustry business model imitation breadth – on new venture performance. An analysis of 96 new ventures in the manufacturing industry in Switzerland shows that both forms of imitation have significant positive direct effects on new venture performance. Further, the findings support the interaction effect as they demonstrate that the direct effect of intraindustry imitation breadth is more important for new venture performance for ventures with a high level of extraindustry imitation breadth. The paper contributes not only to imitation literature, but also to the burgeoning literature of business model innovation