Jan-Michael Ross

Whom Should a Leader Imitate in Multiple Competitor Settings? A Contingency Perspective

Can a leaders imitation of rival competitors lead to superior performance in multiple-competitor settings, and, if so, which rival should the leaders imitative efforts be focused on? Building on prior work on the performance consequences of imitation strategies from competitive dynamics and neo-computational scholars, this paper examines the effectiveness of different imitation strategies pursued by a leader in a multiple-competitor setting subject to exogenous environmental shocks. Findings from an NK simulation model of a three-competitor setting suggest that a leaders imitation of either the rival closest to her in terms of performance to date (her challenger) or of the rival closest to her in terms of position on the landscape (her neighbor) can outperform an independent search strategy in all environments apart from those in which large changes occur frequently. This is because an imitative leader may benefit from ratcheting dynamics that occur as a result of their focal rival being forced into distant search by the leaders imitative behavior, leaving the leader with the opportunity to make productive minor changes to their rivals configuration. The effectiveness of the challenger-imitation strategy relative to one of neighbor-imitation is found to decrease with increasing magnitude of environmental changes, and to increase with their increasing frequency. We proceed to evaluate the external validity of these findings using fine-grained data on multiple-competitor (fleet) sailing races from the Americas Cup World Series 2011-2013, and find support for the propositions emerging from the simulation results.

Timing Decisions in New Product Development for International Markets: A Review and Directions for Empirical Research

of International Business at Vienna University of Economics and Business, Faculty of Business and Economics, Welthandelsplatz 1, 1020 Vienna, Austria, Phone: +43-1-313 36-5120, E-Mail jan.fisch@wu.ac.at, and Visiting Professor at University of Newcastle, Faculty of Business and Law, Callaghan, New South Wales, Australia. Jan-Michael Ross is Assistant Professor in Marketing at Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, Tanaka Building, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom, Phone: +44-(0)207/59-45105, E-Mail: jan.ross@imperial.ac.uk. Timing Decisions in New Product Development for International Markets: A Review and Directions for Empirical Research