Industry dynamics with knowledge-based competition: a computational study of entry and exit patterns

I propose a computational model of industry evolution capable of matching many stylized facts. It views the firm as a myopic but adaptive entity whose survival depends on its ability to perform various activities with greater efficiency than its rivals. In this model, the shakeout pattern arises naturally in the early stage of industrial development. I provide a full comparative dynamics analysis of how various industry-specific factors determine the numbers and the rates of entries and exits over time as well as the ages of the exiting firms. An earlier version of this paper was circulated and presented under the title, “Non-Equilibrium Industry Dynamics with Knowledge-Based Competition: An Agent-Based Computational Model.” I would like to thank the two anonymous referees, Jason Barr, Ed Bell, Jon Harford, Joe Harrington, Bill Kosteas, Edward Nell, and the conference participants at the EEA-2007 Meetings (New York, NY) as well as the 2007 International System Dynamics Conference (Boston, MA) for their helpful comments and suggestions. I gratefully acknowledge the support of the College of Graduate Studies at Cleveland State University.     

会计师事务所的进入、退出与审计市场的竞争

本文主要从进入、退出的角度研究审计市场的竞争。本文的分析表明,审计市场的市场占有率变动率更为合理地衡量市场的动态变化,审计市场的进入壁垒主要是准入壁垒(管制壁垒),而结构性壁垒和流动性壁垒主要存在于大客户市场,对于小客户市场的影响作用很小。为了防止进入者的进入,在位者通过各种流动性壁垒的设置以提高进入者的成本。但从总体看,审计市场仍然是高度竞争的。     

质量是滋养品牌的根

德国奔驰汽车公司的"精益求精"质量宗旨 100多年来,"精益求精"一直是奔驰公司的宗旨,贯彻在整个生产、经营过程中.为保证产品质量,公司从上到下形成了一个质量控制监督网,搞生产的工人有1/6是进行质量控制和检验的,单一个引擎就要经过40多道检验工序.检查协作厂商所提供零配件的工作人员就有1300多名,公司规定:如果一箱里有一个零件不合格就会全部退货.     

Developing a brand from within: Involving employees and volunteers when developing a new brand position

In February 1996 Barnardo's invited six of the UK's leading advertising agencies to pitch for the provision of full and above the line communications and marketing services. Banner McBride was included as part of a joint WPP communications and marketing team (including Ogilvy & Mather) selected to support Barnardo's efforts to reposition and communicate the Barnardo's brand. As the WPP team said at the beginning, Barnardo's were ‘a well-known brand that was not known well’. The challenge was to increase the organisation's saliency, but at the same time build on years of heritage and ensure that employees and volunteers were included from the beginning. This paper describes how the brand building exercise was tackled and how internal communications were developed by the provision of different media.     

城市品牌生态系统的协同演化——城市品牌理论与实践的新视角

目前,越来越多的国家、地区、城市开始运用品牌化的技术和方法来谋求竞争优势。在城市品牌建设的过程中,仍然存在许多困惑,需要新理论的指导。在对城市品牌理论研究现状进行评述的基础上,提出了城市品牌研究的新视角——城市品牌生态系统协同演化理论,阐述了城市品牌生态系统协同演化理论的研究目的、研究内容、研究方法以及研究的意义,尝试为城市品牌塑造和理论研究提供新的思路。     

Spatial competition with free entry, Chamberlinian tangencies, and social efficiency

Free entry in Löschian spatial competition leads to a tangency between each firm's negatively sloped average revenue and the downsloping portion of average costs—as in Chamberlin's monopolistic competition. It is generally concluded that this equilibrium involves too many inefficiently small firms. However, this conclusion is incorrect. The difference between price and firm marginal production costs in spatial equilibrium is just sufficient to cover the additional marginal cost of output resulting from availability of multiple locations. This Chamberlinian tangency does not imply inefficiency, because it does not include all the social costs and benefits resulting from spatial competition.     

Asymmetric information,foreign entry and multi-period credit competition in banking industry

In a credit market, a low-cost foreign entrant is likely less informed than a domestic bank with information endowments. We present a steady-state model in an infinite-period framework, and analyze how the informational asymmetry affects the lending equilibrium and the foreign banks’ entry modes. Firstly, we show that the domestic bank's initial informational advantage from its relatively large market share at the beginning of competition is not enough to hinder the entry of a low-cost foreign bank. In addition, the foreign bank is more likely to be the winner in the steady state of an infinite-period game than that in a static game. Secondly, the comparative static analysis show that the likelihood of foreign bank becoming the winning party increases with borrower quality, project payoff and the growth rate of potential new borrowers. Thirdly, when the foreign bank wins game in the steady state, its market share is decreasing in project payoff and the growth rate of new borrowers, while changes non-monotonically with borrower quality. Finally, we extend our model to characterize the domestic bank's sustainable advantage in being relatively familiar with new market, and provide valuable explanations for the observed entry modes of foreign banks in China.     

When Is Advertising a Signal of Product Quality?

A model of advertising is presented in which consumption experience is an imperfect indicator of product quality. In equilibrium, neither price nor advertising signal the quality of newly introduced goods. Advertising of established products can be a signal of quality, but if it is, it must be an imperfect signal leaving residual uncertainty that influences consumers' repurchase decision. A set of observable implications follow.     

Advertising a product to face a competitor entry: a differential game approach

We analyze a market in which advertising is the dominant marketing tool to create market share. We assume that an incumbent firm dominates the market during an initial stage, and that a new competitor is going to enter the market. In particular, we analyze the different advertising policies that the incumbent firm can adopt, before and after the entry of the rival. We explore three possible behaviours. In the first scenario the firm knows that the competitor will arrive at a given instant. In the second one we assume the original firm to be surprised, in the sense that it does not anticipate the entry of the opponent either because it does not expect the competitor to arrive, or it is not prepared to react before the entry takes place. Finally, in the third scenario, the original firm knows that the competitor will enter at a constant rate. We characterize a differential game model and compare the firms’ behaviours in a strategic perspective.     

Quality competition with motivated providers and sluggish demand

We study incentives for quality provision in markets where providers are motivated (semi-altruistic); prices are regulated and firms are funded by a combination of block grants and unit prices; competition is based on quality, and demand adjusts sluggishly. Health or education are sectors in which the mentioned features are the rule. We show that the presence of motivated providers makes dynamic competition tougher, resulting in higher steady-state levels of quality in the closed-loop solution than in the benchmark open-loop solution, if the price is sufficiently high. However, this result is reversed if the price is sufficiently low (and below unit costs). Sufficiently low prices also imply that a reduction in demand sluggishness will lead to lower steady-state quality. Prices below unit costs will nevertheless be welfare optimal if the providers are sufficiently motivated.     

深入开展思想文化创新 推动新一轮思想解放——为首钢新的发展赢得更大空间

编者按:首钢为深入贯彻十六届五中全会精神,积极推进调整、搬迂和建设,于2005年11月底召开了企业文化全员培训动员大会.作为我国经济结构重大调整的代表性企业,首钢的发展展示着国有企业的走向,为世人关注.这里,我们刊发首钢党委书记、董事长朱继民在这次动员会上的讲话,希望对读者有所启发.     

When to accept a sequence of gambles

When is a sequence of gambles, which is initially rejected eventually accepted? The eventual acceptance is defined as a pair property between the utility function and the sequences of gambles. A sequence of gambles is accepted when the gambles follow a large deviation principle and the utility function is non-satiated and bounded from below in a certain way. The number of gambles required for acceptance is computed.     

A model of antecedents of consumers' post brand attitude upon exposure to a cause–brand alliance

• A cause–brand alliance is a type of cause‐related marketing campaign in which the brand supports a cause in response to a consumer purchasing a product associated with the brand. Using the meaning transfer, attribution, and schema theories, the researchers developed a model and hypotheses addressing structural relationships among key antecedents of brand attitude change upon encountering a cause–brand alliance. The model and the hypotheses were tested in the context of hypothetical cause–brand alliance scenarios. Findings indicate cause–brand alliance attitude as a strong direct predictor of post brand attitude, whereas cause involvement, perceived brand motivations, and prior brand attitude indirectly predict post brand attitude through their effects on cause–brand alliance attitude. Cause–brand fit also indirectly predicts cause–brand alliance attitude via perceived brand motivations. Managerial and theoretical implications are discussed.

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

全力培育顾客满意的品牌——访上海市名牌产品推荐委员会办公室负责人

2002年12月31日,2002年度的上海市372项名牌推荐产品,在全市各系统600余家企业自愿申报的千余种产品基础上,经有关部门初审、专家的评审和市场评估等科学、公正的程序,其中有15余万名消费者和用户参与了投票,最终由市名牌产品推荐委员会审定产生了.日前,本刊记者就上海市名牌战略的发展及其前景专程采访了上海市名牌产品推荐委员会办公室负责人.     

Spatial Cournot competition and economic welfare: a note

We investigated welfare implications in location-quantity models in a symmetric linear city. We found that when firms are not agglomerated in equilibrium, increasing the distance between firms raises (reduces) producer surplus and social welfare (consumer surplus). Moreover, central agglomeration is always optimal for consumers among symmetric locations, but not necessarily for producers. Central agglomeration can be inefficient even if it is the unique equilibrium outcome. In short, the firms are more likely to agglomerate or locate closer than what welfare maximizers would dictate, whereas they locate farther apart than what consumer surplus maximizers would recommend.     

Life-course and entry to entrepreneurship:embedded in gender and gender-egalitarianism

ABSTRACT

Prior research has suggested that low gender egalitarianism results in a gender gap in entrepreneurship participation, as it provides men and women with different opportunities and constraints. However, this research has primarily relied on an unrealistic assumption, namely that gender-related opportunities and constraints occur evenly throughout different life stages. This paper details an institutional life-course model that explains gender-related patterns in individuals’ propensity to enter entrepreneurship and contingencies related to the level of gender-egalitarianism in society and individuals’ life stages. We test our conceptual model on a unique integrated dataset from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor and the World Value Survey, encompassing a total of 672,781 adults in 71 countries.     

Alcohol abuse and employment: a second look

Based on data from the 1988 Alcohol Supplement of the National Health Interview Survey, Mullahy and Sindelar ( 1996 ) (M&S) find, for both men and women, that alcohol abuse results in reduced employment and increased unemployment. The estimates from which they drew these inferences were obtained via the instrumental variables (IV) method, which was implemented in order to account for the potential endogeneity of problem drinking. Though these IV estimates qualitatively supported the prior expectation that problem drinking damages individuals' labour market prospects, they were not found to be statistically significant. The present paper revisits this research and offers a new estimation method which, in addition to accounting for endogeneity, explicitly allows for the inherent non‐linearity of the underlying regression structure. The new method is applied to the same data and variable specifications as those used by M&S for the male subpopulation. Consistent with their results, problem drinking is found to have a positive effect on the probability of unemployment and negative effect on the likelihood of being employed. Unlike their result, however, the latter estimate is statistically significant. An appealing feature of the new method is that it accommodates the likely possibility that alcohol abuse effects are heterogeneous with respect to the observed and unobserved characteristics of individuals in the population. To illustrate this fact, abuse effects are computed for two widely differing subgroups of the population. The large differential between the estimated effects for these two subpopulations demonstrates the potential importance of accounting for heterogeneity. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

When (not) to indulge in ‘puffery’: the role of consumer expectations and brand goodwill in determining advertised and actual product quality

We analyze why some firms advertise product quality at a level different from the actual quality of a product. By considering the interacting effects of product quality and advertising, we develop a dynamic model of consumer expectations about product quality and the development of brand goodwill to determine the optimal values for the decision variables. The model parameters are determined based on prior literature and we use numerical techniques to arrive at the solution. We then derive conditions under which a firm will find it optimal to overstate or understate product quality. The results suggest that quality may be overstated in markets characterized by high price sensitivity, low quality sensitivity, low brand loyalty, and high source credibility, suggesting the need for vigilance on the part of consumers, upper level managers and regulatory authorities in such market conditions. This is important because current regulatory resources are insufficient to reduce deceptive advertising practices (Davis JJ. 1994. Ethics in advertising decision‐making: implications for reducing the incidence of deceptive advertising. Journal of Consumer Affairs 28 : 380–402). Further, the law of deceptive advertising prohibits some advertising claims on the ground that they are likely to harm consumers or competitors (Preston IL, Richards JI. 1993. A role for consumer belief in FTC and Lanham Act deceptive advertising cases. American Business Law Journal 31 : 1–29). Also, Nagler (1993. Rather bait than switch: deceptive advertising with bounded consumer rationality. Journal of Public Economics 51 : 359–378) shows that deceptive advertising causes a net social welfare loss and a public policy effectively preventing deception will improve social welfare. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

When patents matter: The impact of competition and patent age on the performance contribution of intellectual property rights protection

The question whether patenting impacts patenting firms' subsequent financial performance is important for technology-oriented companies. However, relevant research has led to contradictory results. We strive to overcome this impasse by introducing innovation competition and patent age as moderators of patents' performance contribution into the discourse. Based on a sample of 975 cases from diverse industries, we find strong support for our arguments. In line with our expectations, the results show that the number of patents granted, the degree of patent competition, and the timeliness of a patent contribute positively to financial performance. Moderation analysis nuances our findings by showing that the impact of patent protection on financial performance is stronger when the patent competition is stronger and the patents are younger.These findings provide insights into the conditions under which patenting leads to higher financial performance. Our findings highlight the importance of innovation competition and patent age for innovation research. The empirical results show firms that patenting pays and that, in order to tap the full potential of patents, they need to focus on emerging competing industries and reduce the time to market. Policy makers learn that patenting is a successful approach to foster innovation at limited social costs.     

Small and medium-sized charities need a strong brand too: Crisis' experience

This paper looks at the benefits and constraints for smaller charities of developing a strong brand image and identity. It focuses on Crisis' own example as a medium-sized charity of defining, creating and building its brand over the past 18 months and seeks to summarise the lessons it learnt. The paper is based on a presentation given by the author at the Henry Stewart Conference Studies' conference ‘Creating a brand image and identity for charities’.