Competitors' Strategic Heterogeneity and Firm Performance
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1
Universidad de La Rioja
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2
Universidad de Zaragoza
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ISSN: 0024-6301
Año de publicación: 2015
Volumen: 49
Número: 1
Páginas: 145-163
Tipo: Artículo
Otras publicaciones en: Long Range Planning
Proyectos relacionados
2012/00011/001
Resumen
This paper explores intra-industry heterogeneity by proposing a new perspective. Whereas the strategic management literature tends to conceptualize strategic heterogeneity as the divergence between a focal firm and its rivals, we offer a complementary view in which we consider it to be the result of the differences among the strategic positions of the rivals of a firm. We argue that, when heterogeneity is examined from this perspective, vicarious learning and competitive alignment (instead of competition, collusion or legitimation) are the mechanisms that explain the impact of heterogeneity on performance. We also propose that the experience that firms accumulate by competing with the same rivals moderates this relationship. We test our hypotheses on the Spanish banking sector over the period 1999-2009. The results are consistent with them. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd.