scholarly journals Does It Pay to Compete Aggressively? Contingent Roles of Internal and External Resources

2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 620-644 ◽  
Author(s):  
Goce Andrevski ◽  
Walter J. Ferrier

We examine, in hypercompetitive environments, why some firms fail to benefit from competitive aggressiveness while others experience superior profits. We explore the relationship between competitive aggressiveness and performance in a sample of 141 firms from three hypercompetitive industries—personal computers, computer-aided software engineering, and semiconductors—from 1995 to 2006. Contrary to the predominant view within competitive dynamics research, we find that competitive aggressiveness is not a universally effective strategy. For some firms, excessive competitive aggressiveness can escalate costs and diminish performance. Using polynomial regression analysis and response surface methodology, we identify the conditions under which competitive aggressiveness enhances firm performance. Our findings reveal that firms benefit from competitive aggressiveness when they have specialized technological resources and support from a dense network of alliance partners.

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 2336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaime Andrés Bayona ◽  
Amparo Caballer ◽  
José María Peiró

Knowledge workers are highly valued by organizations, but there is a lack of evidence about the role of work engagement in the satisfaction and performance of these workers. Harmonization and Person–Job Fit theory state that workers who have similar characteristics to those present in the context (i.e., give similar importance to the characteristics present in the context) perform better. The aim of this paper is twofold: to test the congruence effect between five knowledge characteristics and their rated influence on job satisfaction and job performance; and test the mediational role of work engagement between the knowledge characteristics’ fit and job performance. Using a time-lagged design, 531 Colombian employees from 20 economic sectors answered questionnaires about work engagement (i.e., UWES-9), knowledge characteristics (i.e., WDQ), importance given to knowledge characteristics, job satisfaction, and job performance. Using polynomial regression, surface response methodology, and ordinary least squares path analyses, we found a congruence effect of the relationship between knowledge characteristics and their levels of importance on job performance in four out of five comparisons (i.e., job complexity, information processing, problem solving, and specialization). In addition, we found that knowledge characteristics’ fit indirectly influenced job satisfaction and performance through its effect on work engagement.


2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anders Pehrsson

Purpose – The literature reports mixed findings on the performance impact of market orientation and a lack of attention to the moderating roles of dyadic competition and firm's age. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between customer responsiveness and performance of industrial firms and to consider the moderators. Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on competitive dynamics literature, a contingency model is developed. Hypotheses were tested on 350 Swedish industrial firms that market clean technology to business customers. Findings – First, the main competitor's cost leadership weakens the positive performance impact of the industrial firm's customer responsiveness. An interpretation would be that it is difficult for product firms to overcome competition based on low costs. Second, the industrial firm's age weakens the positive performance impact of the industrial firm's customer responsiveness. This indicates that the firm's responsiveness advantage diminishes as strategies of competing firms converge. Research limitations/implications – By adding literature on competitive dynamics the study contributes to theory. The article shows that dyadic competition and firm's age matter for the relationship between customer responsiveness and performance. Practical implications – The industrial firm may keep an efficient customer responsiveness strategy by reducing its vulnerability to low costs of the main competitor. Also, an ability of developing the content of the firm's responsiveness strategy would favor the strategy uniqueness and efficiency. Originality/value – The article presents a new model that shows the performance impact of the industrial firm's customer responsiveness, including the moderating roles of the main competitor's competitive strategy and the firm's age. By including the contingencies, the model explains mixed findings in the literature regarding relationships between customer responsiveness and performance.


Author(s):  
Claudio Giachetti ◽  
Giovanni Battista Dagnino

Competitive dynamics inquiry originates from a sequence of attacks and counterattacks among firms in an industry. Firms attack and respond to attacks of rivals in order to strengthen or defend their competitive position within their competitive space. Competitive dynamics research is thus centered on the analysis of how the firm’s actions affect rivals’ reactions and performance. Actually, the nature of competitive dynamics research is the open recognition that firm strategies are “dynamic”: Strategic actions initiated by one firm may trigger a series of actions among rival firms. The new competitive environment in many industries has generated the inception of furious competition, emphasizing flexibility, speed, and innovation in response to fast-changing technological and institutional conditions and temporary competitive advantages. The key constructs and the intellectual roots of competitive dynamics (i.e., Schumpeter’s theory of creative destruction and industrial organization economics and related oligopoly theories) offer some practical examples of industry and firm cases where competitive dynamics have found their main applications. The relevant underpinnings of the awareness–motivation–capability (AMC) framework provide an integrative model of the key behavioral drivers that shape a competitive actions and responses framework (i.e., the factors influencing the firm’s awareness of the context; the factors inducing or impeding the motivation of firms to respond to competitors’ action; and the capability-based factors affecting the firm’s ability to undertake actions), the three key attributes (i.e., the specific actions of firms in the industry, the firm’s competitive interdependence, and the antecedents and performance implications of firms’ competitive actions and reactions), and the three main levels of analysis used in competitive dynamics literature (i.e., action-level studies, business-level studies, and corporate-level studies). Some insights regarding the relationship between dynamic competition and the sources of temporary competitive advantage, coopetition dynamics, as well as the kind of accelerated competition epitomizing early 21st-century digital dynamics settings update the traditional competitive dynamics flavor, as they are connected with firms’ strategic interaction and the pursuit of temporary advantages.


2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Remus Ilies ◽  
Timothy A. Judge ◽  
David T. Wagner

This paper focuses on explaining how individuals set goals on multiple performance episodes, in the context of performance feedback comparing their performance on each episode with their respective goal. The proposed model was tested through a longitudinal study of 493 university students’ actual goals and performance on business school exams. Results of a structural equation model supported the proposed conceptual model in which self-efficacy and emotional reactions to feedback mediate the relationship between feedback and subsequent goals. In addition, as expected, participants’ standing on a dispositional measure of behavioral inhibition influenced the strength of their emotional reactions to negative feedback.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Van Benthem ◽  
Chris M. Herdman

Abstract. Identifying pilot attributes associated with risk is important, especially in general aviation where pilot error is implicated in most accidents. This research examined the relationship of pilot age, expertise, and cognitive functioning to deviations from an ideal circuit trajectory. In all, 54 pilots, of varying age, flew a Cessna 172 simulator. Cognitive measures were obtained using the CogScreen-AE ( Kay, 1995 ). Older age and lower levels of expertise and cognitive functioning were associated with significantly greater flight path deviations. The relationship between age and performance was fully mediated by a cluster of cognitive factors: speed and working memory, visual attention, and cognitive flexibility. These findings add to the literature showing that age-related changes in cognition may impact pilot performance.


2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 55-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lonneke Dubbelt ◽  
Sonja Rispens ◽  
Evangelia Demerouti

Abstract. Women have a minority position within science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and, consequently, are likely to face more adversities at work. This diary study takes a look at a facilitating factor for women’s research performance within academia: daily work engagement. We examined the moderating effect of gender on the relationship between two behaviors (i.e., daily networking and time control) and daily work engagement, as well as its effect on the relationship between daily work engagement and performance measures (i.e., number of publications). Results suggest that daily networking and time control cultivate men’s work engagement, but daily work engagement is beneficial for the number of publications of women. The findings highlight the importance of work engagement in facilitating the performance of women in minority positions.


2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia S. Walsh ◽  
Bryan D. Edwards ◽  
Ana M. Franco-Watkins ◽  
Travis Tubre

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (Number 2) ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Muhammad Zulqarnain Arshad ◽  
Darwina Arshad

The small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play a crucial part in county’s economic growth and a key contributor in country’s GDP. In Pakistan SMEs hold about 90 percent of the total businesses. The performance of SMEs depends upon many factors. The main aim for the research is to examine the relationship between Innovation Capability, Absorptive Capacity and Performance of SMEs in Pakistan. This conceptual paper also extends to the vague revelation on Business Strategy in which act as a moderator between Innovation Capability, Absorptive Capacity and SMEs Performance. Conclusively, this study proposes a new research directions and hypotheses development to examine the relationship among the variables in Pakistan’s SMEs context.


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