Competitive intensity and collaboration: impact on firm growth across technological environments

This article investigates the impact of competitive intensity and collaboration on firm growth across technological environments. I propose that competitive intensity determines the likelihood of firm collaboration, and that the interaction of competitive intensity and collaboration influences firm growth. These relationships are, in turn, moderated by industry‐level technological intensity. Analyzing 1,004 firms and 378 collaborations from the manufacturing sector in Singapore, I find that firms facing high or low levels of competitive intensity collaborate less often than those facing moderate levels of competitive intensity. Industry technology intensity moderates this relationship, with a stronger inverted‐U‐shaped association between competitive intensity and collaboration in more technology intensive industries. Collaboration leads to higher growth for firms facing lower levels of competitive intensity than for firms facing higher levels of competitive intensity only in more technology intensive industries. In technologically less intensive industries, collaboration leads to higher growth for firms facing higher levels of competitive intensity as compared to those facing lower levels of competitive intensity. These findings have important implications for competitive and collaborative dynamics for firm growth in different technological environments. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cross-Functional collaboration,competitive intensity,knowledge integration mechanisms,and new product performance: A mediated moderation model

This study draws upon the structural contingency theory to develop a mediated moderation model in order to examine how knowledge integration mechanisms mediate the impact of competitive intensity on the cross-functional collaboration–new product performance relationship. A final sample of 182 Taiwanese manufacturing firms provides the data for the analyses. The results show that (1) competitive intensity weakens the effect of cross-functional collaboration on new product performance and (2) knowledge integration mechanisms mediate the negative effect of competitive intensity on the cross-functional collaboration–new product performance relationship. These results not only provide an explanation for the inconsistent findings documented in the marketing literature but also call on managers to take relevant actions to alleviate the negative influence of competitive intensity on the performance effects of cross-functional collaboration and knowledge integration mechanisms.     

Do professional service firms benefit from customer and supplier collaborations in competitive,turbulent environments?

Although recent research on business-to-business professional service firms (PSFs) emphasizes the role and consequences of collaboration with business partners, we know little regarding the conditions under which bright-side benefits of PSF interfirm collaboration turn into dark-side drawbacks. Our study shows that customer and supplier collaborations have both bright and dark sides, and their benefits with respect to helping a PSF to drive service performance are contingent on the levels of the environmental competition and turbulence. In particular, we show that increasing levels of competitive intensity and environmental turbulence encountered by a PSF can diminish the capacity of customer and supplier collaborations to drive service performance. When the level of competitive intensity increases, the benefits of customer collaboration become more positive; however, the dark-side of supplier collaboration becomes more pronounced, which negatively influences service performance. When the level of environmental turbulence increases, the dark-side of customer and supplier collaborations becomes more critical and the benefits derived from interfirm collaboration to promote service performance can be lost.     

The effects of perceived industry competitive intensity and marketing-related capabilities: Drivers of superior brand performance

Since the early 1990s the theoretical and practical issues associated with organizational capabilities have been a major research focus in marketing. However, there has been little focus simultaneously on industry environment and internal competitive capability development. A manager's perception of his/her industry environment has the potential to impact the firm's marketing-related capability development through their strategic responses to their perception of the environment. This paper advocates that managers (i.e., firms) perceiving their industry environment as turbulent will develop superior market learning and marketing capabilities. Market learning will assist in the process of building superior marketing capabilities. Both capabilities lead to higher brand performance. To explore these issues a study was designed to measure perceived industry competitive intensity, market learning and marketing capabilities. Data were gathered from senior managers of commercial firms and the results largely support the hypothesized theoretical relationship that industry competitive intensity influences market learning activity and marketing capability development. Interestingly, the study findings suggest that market learning impacts brand performance through marketing capability. The findings significantly contribute to the debate on the influence of the competitive environment on a firm's internal capability development which suggests the need for further research to examine the industry competitive intensity-internal capabilities-firm performance relationship.     

Is there a virtuous circle relationship between innovation activities and exports? A comparison of food and agricultural firms

This study examines the existence of an interrelationship between innovation decisions and exports for food and agricultural firms as such a relationship could be the source of competitive advantages. Thus, taking as a theoretical basis the focus provided by the Resource-Based-View, the innovation and export decisions taken from 2006 to 2011 by 165 agricultural firms and 783 food companies operating in Spain (Europe) are examined here. The results of the bivariate probit and matching models used indicate a bi-directional nature of these decisions in the case of food companies and a positive though not bidirectional one in the case of the agricultural firms. Furthermore, a certain persistence is seen in the use of these decisions in both types of firms. For food companies, capital intensity and size are also determinants of innovation and exports. From the viewpoint of the decisions taken by individual firms, the bidirectional relationship could involve significant pressure in terms of the larger volume of both technological and human resources required. Agricultural and food policy decisions should incentivize these decisions given that in order to operate successfully in the global market it is necessary to acquire these competitive advantages, which also favor the growth of the agriculture and food trades.     

Value-creation-capture-equilibrium in new product development alliances: A matter of coopetition,expert power,and alliance importance

Alliances are often thought to be longer lasting and lead to better results when they are perceived as equal and fair in terms of how efforts and rewards are distributed. This study conceptualizes the value-creation-capture-equilibrium (VCCE) as the relative inputs and efforts made by alliance partners to create and capture innovation-related value. We seek to better understand the determinants of the VCCE in dyadic new product development (NPD) alliances. We focus on three factors from a focal firm's perspective: (1) the coopetition intensity with the alliance partner (i.e. simultaneous competition and collaboration), (2) the expert power of the alliance partner, and (3) the relative importance of the particular NPD alliance. We hypothesize that coopetition intensity stabilizes the VCCE. Furthermore, we assume that the partner's expert power and the focal firm's relative alliance importance negatively moderate the relationship between coopetition intensity and the VCCE. Based on a dataset of N = 471 NPD alliances of high-tech firms, we find partial support for our hypotheses and contribute towards a better understanding of the factors influencing the VCCE in NPD alliances.     

A Comparison of New Service versus New Product Development: Configurations of Collaborative Intensity as Predictors of Performance

Collaboration among firms for innovation has received considerable attention. However, little is known about how firm‐to‐firm collaboration is configured in new service development (NSD) versus new product development (NPD). This study takes a multidimensional approach and measures firm‐to‐firm collaboration on different intensity dimensions of (1) processes (mutual communication, joint engagement, sharing responsibilities) and (2) ownership (relationship commitment and mutual trust). By showing that the phenomenon of collaboration is multifaceted, this study is able to knit a more comprehensive and cohesive understanding of the differences between NSD and NPD success as the result of different patterns of collaboration. Specifically, it utilizes survey data collected from 194 alliances to substantiate how NSD and NPD differ on these collaborative dimensions and then explores their impact on NSD versus NPD performance. The findings suggest that collaboration between firms in NSD is configured and works differently than collaboration between firms in NPD. The results further show that there is a stronger, positive relationship of intensity levels of joint engagement among firms involved in product development and performance than when a new service is developed. However, the intensity of mutual trust has a stronger, positive relationship with development performance when a new service is developed than when a new product is developed. Implications are discussed, and suggestions for future research are given.     

Behind organizational slack and firm performance in China: The moderating roles of ownership and competitive intensity

Extensive studies of the organizational slack–performance relationship offer mixed findings in developed economies while little research attends to transition economies. Replicating and extending earlier work by Tan and Peng (2003), this study examines the relationship between organizational slack and firm performance in China and focuses on the moderating effects of firm ownership and competitive intensity. Empirical findings based on longitudinal data from 60,945 firms during 1998–2002 suggest that the impact of organizational slack on performance is stronger for private enterprises than for SOEs and foreign-invested enterprises. Furthermore, industry competitive intensity positively moderates the effect of organizational slack on performance. In a three-way interaction effect, the moderating effect of competitive intensity on the organizational slack–performance relationship is weaker in SOEs than in private enterprises and foreign invested enterprises.     

Customer collaboration,service firms' diversification and innovation performance

To sustain competitive advantage, service firms must adapt to the market environment, often by means of diversification and innovation. While extensive research has focussed on the role of customer collaboration in service firm innovation performance, fewer studies have examined the role of firm diversification in this relationship. This study draws on the resource-based view and dynamic capability literature to explore relationships between customer collaboration, diversification and innovation performance of service firms. A conceptual framework was developed and tested using a survey of 156 mining equipment, technology and services (METS) firms in South Australia, and case studies. The findings indicate that service and market diversification mediate the relationship between customer collaboration and innovation performance. Importantly, our findings demonstrate that customer collaboration has no direct effect on the innovation performance of service firms. The research helps practitioners and policymakers to understand the importance of enhancing collaboration across supply chains to build diversified and resilient to downturns in traditional sectors service economies.     

R&D Partnerships and Innovation Performance: Can There Be too Much of a Good Thing?

R&D collaboration facilitates the pooling of complementary skills, learning from the partner as well as the sharing of risks and costs. Research therefore stresses the positive relationship between collaborative R&D and innovation performance. Fewer studies address the potential drawbacks of collaborative R&D. Collaborative R&D comes at the cost of coordination and monitoring, requires knowledge disclosure, and involves the risk of opportunistic behavior by the partners. Thus, while for lower collaboration intensities the net gains can be high, costs may start to outweigh benefits if firms perform a higher share of their innovation projects collaboratively. For a sample of 2735 firms located in Germany and active in a broad range of manufacturing and service sectors, this study finds that increasing the share of collaborative R&D projects in total R&D projects is associated with a higher probability of product innovation and with a higher market success of new products. While this confirms previous findings on the gains for innovation performance, the results also show that collaboration has decreasing and even negative returns on product innovation if its intensity increases above a certain threshold. Thus, the relationship between collaboration intensity and innovation follows an inverted‐U shape and, on average, costs start to outweigh benefits if a firm pursues more than about two‐thirds of its R&D projects in collaboration. This result is robust to conditioning market success to the introduction of new products and to accounting for the selection into collaborating. This threshold is, however, contingent on firm characteristics. Smaller and younger as well as resource‐constrained firms benefit from relatively higher collaboration intensities. For firms with higher collaboration complexities in terms of different partners and different stages of the R&D process at which collaboration takes place, returns start to decrease already at lower collaboration intensities.     

Building and leveraging competence exploitation and exploration for firm new product success

We theorize that industry conditions of collaboration intensity and innovation intensity drive the development of competence exploitation and exploration in manufacturer-manufacturer collaborations, and that such competencies can be leveraged to increase firm-level new product sales and market share, contingent on the firm's establishment of non-proprietary knowledge transfer capability. We test our model using a survey of 224 manufacturer-manufacturer collaborations. Our findings indicate that collaboration intensity drives firms to build both competence exploration and exploitation while innovation intensity drives neither. We also find that while non-proprietary knowledge capability enhances the influence of competence exploration on a firm's new product sales and market share, it dampens the firm's ability to leverage competence exploitation for firm-level new product success.     

Effects of entrepreneurial marketing on new ventures' exploitative and exploratory innovation: The moderating role of competitive intensity and firm size

EM is a strategic orientation that draws on seven elements: proactiveness, opportunity-focus, risk-taking orientation, innovation orientation, customer satisfaction orientation, value creation and resource leveraging. These elements reinforce each other in a synergistic manner. We investigate how EM affects a new venture's exploitative and exploratory innovation activities. To identify conditions under which EM is more or less effective, we analyze the relationship between EM and exploitative and exploratory innovation under conditions of high and low environmental competitiveness and high and low levels of firm size. Based on survey data from 146 German new ventures up to ten years old in the B2B sector, our results provide evidence of a significant and positive effect of EM on exploitative and exploratory innovation. We find, further, that under conditions of high competitive intensity, the effects of EM on exploratory innovation strengthen, while low levels of competitive intensity do not affect the relationship between EM and exploratory innovation. Our results also show that for larger firms, the positive effects of EM on exploitative innovation are weaker, while for smaller firms, those effects are stronger.     

Influences of cross-functional collaboration and knowledge creation on technology commercialization: Evidence from high-tech industries

Technology commercialization (TC) contributes to maintaining the competitive advantage of high-tech firms, but although researchers have established that product innovation and new product development are enhanced by cross-functional collaboration and organizational knowledge activities, this may not be the case for TC. Drawing on the knowledge-based view and the influence of cross-functional collaboration, the main goal of this study is to unravel the relationships among cross-functional collaboration, knowledge creation and TC performance in the high-tech industry context. Empirical findings from our survey of 203 marketing and R&D managers and employees in Taiwanese high-tech companies indicate that cross-function collaboration reveals fresh opportunities for creating knowledge and commercializing technologies. Our results also suggest that knowledge creation plays an important role in TC performance by partially mediating the relationship between cross-functional collaboration and TC performance. The contributions of this study provide new insights into industrial marketing literature by proposing a cross-functional collaboration-enabled TC model that takes into account the effect of knowledge creation.     

企业进入与行业利润率——对中国钢铁产业的实证研究

本文评述了研究企业进入行为的影响因素和市场效应的相关国内外文献，在此基础上提出了一个研究企业进入与行业利润率之间双向动态关系的分析框架。在此框架内．我们分析了钢铁工业近年来高速发展过程中的企业进入和利润率变动，使用动态模型刻画了二者的相互关系．解释了为什么在利润率为负的情况下某些产业中企业进入仍然十分剧烈．同时从跨产业比较的角度测度了4个亚产业的进入壁垒和竞争强度。本文的分析方法同样适用于其他产业。     

Does the use of knowledge integration mechanisms enhance product innovativeness?

This study draws upon the perspectives of organizational learning and environmental contingency to investigate how the use of knowledge integration mechanisms affects product innovativeness under different levels of technological turbulence, market turbulence, and competitive intensity. Based on a sample of 102 high-tech product projects, hierarchical moderated regression analyses reveal that product innovativeness is related to knowledge integration mechanisms in a curvilinear manner under different levels of competitive intensity, market turbulence, and technological turbulence. Specifically, under a low level of competitive intensity, market turbulence and technological turbulence, the relationship between knowledge integration mechanisms and product innovativeness is an inverted U-shape. By contrast, under a high level of competitive intensity, market turbulence, and technological turbulence, product innovativeness is related to knowledge integration mechanisms in a U-shaped manner.     

Detecting the relationship between competitive intensity and firm product line length: Evidence from the worldwide mobile phone industry

The way firms lengthen or shorten their product line with respect to rivals is regarded as one of the possible strategies firms can pursue to respond to competition. This article builds and tests hypotheses to study the effect of different levels of competitive intensity on product line length. The empirical analysis of data on 3,527 handset models introduced by 66 mobile phone vendors from 1994 to 2010 shows a consistent inverse U‐shaped relationship between competitive intensity and the firm's product line length. In this way, we pinpoint an interesting link between the product line extension literature and the competitive dynamics and competitive intensity perspectives. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd     

Launch decisions and competitive reactions: an exploratory market signaling study

When firms launch a new product into the marketplace they often aim to find a balance between building scale and provoking extensive and quick competitive reactions. Competitors react to new products when they perceive the product introduction as hostile, committed or when they feel that the product entry will have a large impact on their profitability. The present study develops a framework that shows how strong and fast incumbents react to perceived market signals resulting from a new product's launch decisions (broad targeting, penetration pricing, advertising intensity and product advantage). The strength of the relationships between the launch decisions and the perceived market signals was expected to depend on one industry characteristic (i.e., market growth) and on one entrant characteristic (i.e., aggressive reputation). We distinguished three market signals in our framework: hostility, commitment and consequences. Signal hostility refers to the extent to which the approach used by an acting firm to introduce the new product is perceived hostile whereas the commitment signal refers to the extent to which incumbents perceive the entrant firm to be committed to the new product introduction. The consequence signal is defined as the incumbents' perception of the impact of a new product entry on their profitability. We tested our framework using cross‐sectional data provided by 73 managers in The Netherlands who recently reacted to a new product entry. The results clearly reveal which launch decisions create which market signals. For example, incumbents consider high advantage new products hostile and consequential. Penetration pricing and an intense advertising campaign are also considered hostile, especially in fast growing markets. Broad targeting is not perceived hostile, especially not when used by entrants with an aggressive reputation. In addition, this study explored the impact of three perceived market signals on the strength and speed of competitive reaction. The results reveal that perceived signals of hostility and commitment positively impact the strength of reaction, whereas the perceived consequence signal positively impacts the speed of reaction. The article concludes with the implications of our study for managers and academics. The relevance to managers was assessed from both the perspective of the incumbent firm that must defend, and that of the rival firm that is introducing the new product.     

The relationship of industry structure to open innovation: cooperative value creation in pharmaceutical consortia

With its focus on value creation and value capture, open innovation research explicitly or implicitly examines the competitive impacts of collaboration. However, to date such research has not considered the effects of a blockbuster industry structure upon open innovation. Here, we examine a particular form of multilateral collaboration, the open R&D consortium, in which the results from collaboration are allowed to spill over to members and nonmembers alike. We do so in the context of the pharmaceutical industry, a stable but fragmented industry defined by the ongoing search for blockbuster hits protected by strong appropriability. Using a novel data set, we identify 141 such consortia that involve two or more of the 30 largest pharma firms. We show that firms financially support such consortia, in part, because their value creation activities benefit members without disrupting the value capture or other aspects of the incumbent industry structure. We discuss the implications of these findings for research on multilateral collaboration in blockbuster industries, and open innovation more generally.     

Firm innovativeness and business performance: The joint moderating effects of market turbulence and competition

To clarify the nature of the effect of firm innovativeness on business performance, this study draws on contingency theory and an interactional perspective to develop a conceptual framework to investigate how the interaction between market turbulence and competitive intensity moderates the relationship between firm innovativeness and business performance. This study used survey data from a sample of 154 high-tech manufacturing firms in Taiwan and employed hierarchical moderated regression analysis to test the hypotheses developed. The results reveal that the effect of firm innovativeness on business performance varies across the different configurations of market turbulence and competitive intensity. Specifically, the performance effect of firm innovativeness is most positive under high market turbulence and high competitive intensity; the performance effect is least positive under low market turbulence and low competitive intensity. However, the performance benefits of firm innovativeness fail to materialize under low market turbulence and high competitive intensity. Overall, these findings highlight that market turbulence and competition jointly influence the direction and strength of the performance effect of firm innovativeness. This study advances firm innovativeness research by identifying the configurational market conditions that augment or limit the value of firm innovativeness.     

The effects of complementarity of knowledge and capabilities on joint innovation capabilities and service innovation: The role of competitive intensity and demand uncertainty

Service innovation has become increasingly important for the growth of developed and developing countries. Despite an extensive body of literature on the role of joint innovation capabilities in improving a firm's innovativeness, the multivariate influences of operant resources and joint innovation capabilities, as well as the interplay among these in the prediction of service innovation have not been scrutinized in the context of B2B SMEs in a developing country. This study aims to fill this gap by testing a model that shows the relationships among complementarity of knowledge and capabilities as operant resources, joint innovation capabilities, and service innovation. We derive hypotheses about these relationships and test them using data from a sample of 302 respondents from 151 firms operating in the UAE. The results show that the relationships between complementarity of knowledge and joint innovation capabilities, and between joint innovation capabilities and service innovation, are significant and positive. They also show that the mediation effect of joint innovation capabilities on the relationship between complementarity of knowledge and service innovation is positive and full. This study also tests the moderating roles of competitive intensity and demand uncertainty in the relationship between joint innovative capabilities and service innovation and finds that their connection is stronger when competitive intensity is high.