Revisiting the imitation assumption: Why imitation may increase, rather than decrease, performance heterogeneity

摘要

Research Summary: Imitation is a central construct in strategy theory because it is assumed to diminish inter-firm performance heterogeneity within an industry. We revisit this assumption, which is premised on the logic that imitated practices act directly to make the imitator more similar to its target. This logic is incomplete because imitation also acts indirectly-via its effect on an imitator's post-imitation experiential learning efforts through which it refines imitated practices and fills remaining knowledge gaps. We examine how an imitator's focus of attention during this post-imitation experiential learning process impacts performance heterogeneity. Employing a computational model, we contrast the heterogeneity resulting from imitative entry with that from de novo (non-imitative) entry and identify conditions under which imitation may increase, rather than decrease, inter-firm performance heterogeneity.