Search results

This study aims to explore the effect of chief executive officer education on firms’ action timing and acquisition performance in industry merger waves. In addition, this study investigated the moderating influence of CEO duality and firm cash flow on the relationship between education and entry timing.

Following the methodology for determining merger waves in previous studies, the authors identified 16 industry merger waves of Chinese listed firms from 2008 to 2019. Multiple linear regression was employed to examine the hypotheses.

The results showed that higher CEO education was associated with early participation in merger waves. CEO duality negatively moderated the education-entry timing relation. The effect of CEO education on entry timing was more pronounced when firms had higher cash flow. Moreover, more educated CEOs materially enhanced acquisition performance in merger waves.

Entry timing in industry merger waves has important implications, as early movers establish competitive advantages and achieve higher acquisition performance. However, the managerial characteristics determining entry timing have not received adequate attention. Meanwhile, studies examining the effect of CEO education on acquisitions are limited. This study explored the effect of CEO education on firms’ entry timing and acquisition performance in merger waves, thereby contributing to the literature on merger waves and managerial characteristics. This study’s findings regarding the moderators of the education-entry timing relation enrich the literature on corporate governance and agency theory.

Increasing rates of change in technologies, markets, and other environmental factors make time a valued resource in marketing decisions. When decisions are made and implemented requires explicit managerial attention. Increased pressures on managers to develop profitable streams of new products make new product entry one of the more important marketing decisions affected by timing—especially in a rapidly changing environment. To improve the management of this decision, time‐based competitive entry strategies are considered, along with an approach for making the timing decision. The approach is based on a case study. Implementation aspects of the market entry timing decision are also considered.

Notes that much is known in the academic literature about factors that may be influential in firms’ market entry timing decisions. Specifically, in response to a competitors’ pioneering new product introduction, academic research finds many conditions that suggest a greater desirability of immediate market entry while many other conditions suggest a greater desirability of a delayed response. Reports the results of a survey and experiment where working managers and experienced MBA students were asked to evaluate the timing of market entry given a complex business scenario. The results show areas where there is a consensus among decision makers with the academic literature, as well as areas where views differ from that of the literature. Perverts and discusses insights gained into the decision making processes of managers for market entry timing decisions. The study can help managers in follower firms achieve greater success in formulating market entry timing strategies by reducing ambiguity in the timing implications of many internal and external conditions, as well as by drawing attention to potential action biases.

The purpose of this study is to explore market entry strategies in a high-tech successive generations (HTSGs) market, by investigating entry mode via entry timing and path differentiation and the performance outcomes of entry mode.

The methodology of building a theory from a longitudinal case study is adopted by using useful cases in a HTSGs market after constructing an integrated research framework to explore market entry mode. Different entry modes were investigated by studying entry timing and migration path of three firms’ case in logic semiconductor market. In addition, performance outcomes of different entry modes were measured and correlated with each other.

The results identified three major entry modes suitable for a HTSGs market. The three firms differentiated their entry modes by exploiting different entry timings from the earliest to the last and different migration paths including switching, leapfrogging and new entrance path to enter a market. First mover advantage also exists in a HTSGs market, and it was found uniquely that the financial performance denoted by entry mode outcomes was correlated with technological knowledge.

This study extends the theory of extant entry strategy from general consumer or industrial market to HTSGs market, in which intense competition exits and technological innovation is important. Moreover, this study verified that the causality between early entry and positive performance was also effective in HTSGs market with a shorter duration of early entry advantage.

This study has managerial implications for firms to establish market entry strategy in HTSGs market and other markets. To become a product leader, a fast follower or a late follower, firms can differentiate their entry mode by adjusting the entry timing and migration path in the context of market and technology.

This study examined market entry strategies suitable for HTSGs market based on its unique characteristics and extended relevant theory into HTSGs market. Further, an integrated research framework, which explores the market entry mode, was constructed to facilitate further exploration of entry mode into other markets.

This paper aims to present a new framework that describes the relationship among market entry order and timing, the advantages accruing to first-movers and late-movers, entry timing premium (ETP), marketing strategy and enduring market performance of the firms. The framework, empirically tested using data from 241 business executives, expands extant research into new territory beyond first- and late-mover advantages in an attempt to reconcile a few streams of research in the area and provides an entry related, strategic assessment tool (ETP) for the managers. Contribution to marketing strategy theory and managerial implications are also presented.

Participants included informants in a firm’s strategic business unit who were the most familiar with a new product’s commercial launch, market condition at launch, competitor offerings, marketing activities and capabilities and eventual integration into or withdrawal from the product’s portfolio. Therefore, for the survey, the study targeted chief executive officers, vice presidents of marketing or sales, product or sales managers, general managers and regional managers. Both preference bias (Narus, 1984) and survivor biases among the respondents were addressed.

The research result of this study reveals two very significant aspects of marketing and marketing strategies. First, the importance of financial, pricing and cost strategies further attests to the fiercely competitive nature of the global market today and the tendency for firms to commoditize most products and services. An effective financial and pricing strategy, coupled with a higher level of ETP, is capable of leading a firm to initial market success in the product-market in which it competes. Both ETP (a positional advantage and resource of the firm) and financial and pricing strategies (a deliberate strategic decision of the management) are important to achieve this goal.

This study is limited in several ways. The effects of entry order and timing on market performance could be dependent on the types of industries and types of product categories involved. However, as the hypotheses were well supported, the “industry specific” factors would provide “fine-tuning” in the future study. Second, the nature of the product (goods or services) may also present varying effects on the relationship studied (for differences between manufacturing and service firms in pioneering advantages, see Song et al., 1999). Services’ intangible nature, difficulty in protecting property rights, high involvement of boundary-spanning employees and customers, high reliance on delivery and quality, and ease of imitation may alter the proposed relationships in the model and the moderating effects. Third, although this study used a “retrospective” protocol approach in the data collection by encouraging respondents to recall market, product and business information, this study is not longitudinal. Lack of longitudinal data in any study involving strategic planning, strategy execution and the long-term effects is no doubt a weakness. In addition, due to peculiarity and complexity with regard to regulation and other aspects in pharmaceutical and other industries, the theory might be limited to a certain extent.

In all, the integrated framework contributes to the understanding of the intricate issues surrounding first-mover advantage, late-mover advantage, entry order and timing and the role of marketing strategy. The framework provides practitioners guidance as to when to enter a product-market to gain advantageous positions and how to maintain that advantage. Firms that use a deliberate late-mover strategy could also benefit from the research finding in mapping out their strategic courses of action.

This study believes that the halo effect surrounding first-mover advantage may have obscured the visions of some researchers and managers, and the pursuit of a silver bullet has led to frenzied interests in becoming a “first-mover” or a deliberate “late-mover”. The theoretical framework, which is substantiated by empirical testing, invalidates the long-held claim that entry of a particular kind (first-movers or late-movers) yields any unique competitive advantage. It is a firms’ careful selection of marketing strategies and careful execution of the strategies through effective operational tactics that would lead to enduring competitive advantage, under an adequate level of ETP.

This paper examines an apparent contrast in organizing innovation tournaments; seekers offer contestant-agnostic incentives to elicit greater effort from a heterogeneous pool of contestants. Specifically, the study tests whether and how such incentives and the underlying heterogeneity in the contestant pool, assessed in terms of contestants' entry timing, are jointly associated with contestant effort. Thus, the study contributes to the prior literature that has looked at behavioral consequences of entry timing as well as incentives in innovation tournaments.

For hypothesis testing, the study uses a panel dataset of submission activity of over 60,000 contestants observed in nearly 200 innovation tournaments. The estimation employs multi-way fixed effects, accounting for unobserved heterogeneity across contestants, tournaments and submission week. The findings remain stable across a range of robustness checks.

The study finds that, on average, late entrant tends to exert less effort than an early entrant (H1). Results further show that the effort gap widens in tournaments that offer higher incentives. In particular, the effort gap between late and early entrants is significantly wider in tournaments that have attracted superior solutions from several contestants (H2), offer gain in status (H3, marginally significant) or offer a higher monetary reward (H4).

The study's findings counter conventional wisdom, which suggests that incentives have a positive effect on contestant behavior, including effort. In contrast, the study indicates that incentives may have divergent implications for contestant behavior, contingent on contestants' entry timing. As the study discusses, these findings have several implications for research and practice of managing innovation tournaments.

In this paper, we analyze the influence of the environmental conditions and firm capabilities on the time of entry. We find significant direct and interaction effects. Furthermore, we show that firms develop a pioneer behavior not only when they have the suitable capabilities to take advantage of the perceived opportunities in the industry but also when these firms have key capabilities to maintain their first‐mover advantages, given the perception of unfavorable conditions in the industry.

The globalization of markets and businesses has meant that many companies now consider the world as a potential marketplace. In this changing environment, two crucial decisions taken by companies are time of entry (e.g. whether to enter early or late) and level of involvement (e.g. whether to adopt low involvement modes such as exports or high involvement modes such as sole venture). Although existing research has examined these issues and underscored the importance of these two decisions in isolated descriptive research, none has developed an integrated mathematical modeling framework for handling these two decisions simultaneously. To alleviate this important gap in the literature, develops a mathematical model for considering these decisions in a simultaneous framework. The results of the model are illustrated by means of numerical simulations. Managerial implications of the model and future research directions are delineated.

This paper aims to examine whether there is evidence of pioneering advantage in long‐term survival terms in the particular context of franchising.

Data covering 188 franchise chains for an eight‐year period (from 1995 to 2003), operating in restoration and fashion retailing sector are used. The Cox proportional hazard model is used to examine survival. The existence of pioneering advantage is tested in the Spanish context because its franchising sector is one of the most developed in Europe, along with those of France, the UK and Germany.

Empirical evidence of pioneering advantage was found. Early entry strategy leads to lower failure risk. Different strategies are highlighted according to different entry time moments, suggesting a moderating role of the entry timing decision. Additional variables influence survival such as previous experience or dual distribution.

The paper has some limitations. The focus is just on one country. Therefore, a multi‐country study could help to generalize the results. Furthermore, the research could be improved by adding variables of the specific franchise context such as the franchise fee or the royalty rates.

The results may help franchisors to improve their survival, adapting their strategies to be more competitive in the market. Depending on their entry timing decisions, they can have different strategies to continue in the market. Pioneers differ from late entrants in terms of ownership structure and system size – two main aspects for survival. Moreover, the paper can help the prospective franchisee in making a better selection of franchise chain in which to invest. Findings support the idea that entering at the early stages of the franchise industry brings some advantages.

The paper highlights the importance of the entry‐timing decision in the franchising context using survival as performance. This objective has not been underlined in previous research.

Research has identified inverted U-shaped relationships between domestic competitive position, often cast in terms of home-country market share or relative profitability, and speed of entry into a foreign market. However, in some industries, firms may be especially attentive and responsive to competition between firms in their local-home market (i.e. sub-national). Hence, this study aims to explore the effect of local-home market competitive intensity on the relationship between a firm’s overall competitive position and speed of entry into a foreign market.

Data from 114 large US corporate law firms from 1992 through 2008 were used for Cox proportional-hazards regression models to estimate the moderating effect of local-home market competitive intensity on the relationship between relative profitability at the national level and speed of entry (i.e. hazard rate) into China.

Less-dominant firms from highly competitive local-home markets entered China more quickly than less-dominant firms from less-competitive local-home markets. In addition, first-movers from highly competitive local-home markets tended to have more advantageous competitive profiles, as reflected in profitability, than first-movers from less-competitive local-home markets.

This research explores an important contingency in the relationship between a firm’s competitive position at home and timing of entry into a foreign market. Additionally, the results suggest that first-movers from less-competitive local-home markets may face immediate competition from better-positioned first-movers from more competitive locations within the same home market when they enter new markets.