MAKING LEMONADE OUT OF LEMONS:
BENEFITS OF INTERFIRM COMPETITION FROM COGNITIVE AND RELATIONAL PERSPECTIVES
Open Access
Author:
Kim, Kwang ho
Graduate Program:
Business Administration
Degree:
Doctor of Philosophy
Document Type:
Dissertation
Date of Defense:
August 04, 2009
Committee Members:
Wenpin Tsai, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor Wenpin Tsai, Committee Chair/Co-Chair Donald C Hambrick, Committee Member Timothy Grant Pollock, Committee Member Bill Ross, Committee Member
Keywords:
Competitive Dynamics Strategic alliance Social comparison Interfirm competition
Abstract:
This dissertation explores how firms can use their competition and create benefits from competition. While conventional wisdom based on industrial economics, Schumpeterian economics, and organizational ecology has considered interfirm competition to be harmful to individual firms, I view interfirm competition as an opportunity as well as a threat. With this view of interfirm competition, I examine particular strategies through which firms can exploit opportunities by using competition. My dissertation consists of two major sections. First, applying a cognitive perspective, I present a theoretical and empirical analysis that firms can become more successful by comparing themselves with particular competitors. Second, I develop theoretical arguments and present empirical results that a firm’s strategic alliance with a competitor’s alliance partner is more favorably accepted by investors than the firm’s alliance which does not involve a competitor. These results suggest that a firm’s comparisons with their competitors and an alliance with their competitors’ partners can be a way of “making lemonade out of lemons”.