Whom should a leader imitate? Using rivalry‐based imitation to manage strategic risk in changing environments

Dmitry Sharapov · Jan-Michael Roß

66 citations0/0 files storedStrategic Management Journal

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Innovation and Knowledge Management Management and Organizational Studies Business Strategy and Innovation

Abstract

Abstract Research Summary We study the performance implications of dynamic environments for a leader's rivalry‐based imitation efforts in a setting with multiple rivals. We disentangle competitive interactions from environmental changes to show that a leader's simple rules to either imitate the closest rival in terms of attributes (her neighbor) or the closest rival in terms of rank (her challenger) can help to maintain the performance gap to her competitors. Using a computational model and an empirical test, we find that environmental changes alter the trade‐offs between imitation accuracy and the responsiveness to threats from distant rivals. Consequently, when environmental changes are infrequent and minor, neighbor imitation is more effective in maintaining the lead, whereas challenger imitation prevails as environmental changes become more frequent and substantial. Managerial Summary By showing that imitating a lower‐ranked rival can help a leader to stay ahead, recent research has overturned the common thinking that imitation is only useful for those trying to catch up with the leader. However, these insights come from contexts in which the leader has only one competitor. Can imitation also be effective for a leader competing against multiple rivals, and whom should the leader imitate? We find that imitation can indeed help the leader to maintain their lead against multiple rivals, but that the choice of imitation target matters and should take the competitive environment into account. In relatively stable environments, imitating your most similar rival works best, while imitating whoever is in second place is a more effective approach in changeable environments.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 66 citations exist upstream.

References

1991Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage 1983The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields 2004Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage 1997Dynamic capabilities and strategic management 1980Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors 1974Competition and Entrepreneurship 1964A Behavioral Theory of the Firm 1997Adaptation on Rugged Landscapes

Cited by

2021Seeing What Others Miss: A Competition Network Lens on Product Innovation 2023Towards an entrepreneurial leadership based on kindness in a digital age 2021Hiding in the Crowd: Government Dependence on Firms, Management Costs of Political Legitimacy, and Modest Imitation 2022Catching up with the market leader: Does it pay to rapidly imitate its innovations?2022The art of rhetoric: Host country political hostility and the rhetorical strategies of foreign subsidiaries in developing economies

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.