The time to market entry and the resulting type of competition are crucial factors in business activities, although they could be overlooked during organizations managers’ decision process. Companies can employ several strategies to achieve market leadership taking into account their endogenous characteristics and exogenous variables. In accordance to these, firms might determine to act as first or second movers in a given industry, both exhibiting pros and cons. The first-mover can be easily recognized as a pioneer by customers and exploit initial advantages and dominant position but it faces significant risks and uncertainties. On the contrary, a second mover rallies a more competitive environment whereas it learns from first-mover’s faults. After the exposition of the most important works of literature results relative to first-mover advantages and disadvantages and the drives affecting competition between first and second entrants, we developed the hypotheses constituting the ground for the empirical study. Eventually, the purpose of this elaborate is to analyse how first, second and late entrants have rivalled under particular conditions. A reliable sample of 9 mobile phones companies has been constituted, a sector which represents a technology-intensive and fast-evolving industry. The performed examination has also the scope of attesting the prominence of the role of innovation and imitation strategies: while R&D expenses provide significant findings for all the companies, patents protections offer ambiguous interpretations. Furthermore, we afforded estimates, on a 5 years’ base, regarding the likelihood of surpassing leader which may occur between the current three most important brands operating in the mobile phones market
Le tempistiche di accesso sul mercato e le tipologie di competizione che ne derivano costituiscono fattori importanti per le attività economiche, sebbene rischino di essere trascurati durante un processo decisionale. Le aziende adottano diverse strategie per ottenere la leadership di mercato, osservando le caratteristiche endogene della società stessa e quelle endogene dell’ambiente economico. Possiamo distinguere tra società che godono del vantaggio della prima mossa (first-mover) e quelle che entrano solo in seguito (second-mover), entrambe le strategie presentano vantaggi e svantaggi. I first-mover vengono generalmente riconosciuti come pionieri dai consumatori e ottengono un’iniziale posizione di dominio sul mercato, ma contemporaneamente devono affrontare maggiori rischi e incertezze. Al contrario, i second-mover operano sotto maggiore competizione ma possono evitare gli errori commessi dal first-mover. Dopo aver presentato i risultati delle opere di maggior importanza relative a svantaggi e vantaggi della prima mossa, e alle variabili che influenzano la competizione, abbiamo potuto sviluppare le ipotesi che sono alla base dello studio empirico. Lo scopo di questa tesi è quello di analizzare come first, second e late-mover competono tra loro in particolari condizioni. Oggetto di analisi è un campione di 9 aziende della telefonia mobile, settore che rappresenta un’industria ad alta intensità tecnologia e soggetta a rapida trasformazione. Inoltre l’elaborato attesta l’importanza che ricoprono innovazione e imitazione: mentre gli investimenti in R&D forniscono risultati validi per tutte le società quelli relativi ai brevetti sono ambigui. Per concludere, abbiamo effettuato delle previsioni su un possibile sorpasso nella leadership di mercato tra le tre attuali maggiori aziende che operano nel mondo della telefonia.
The second movers overcoming the first-mover: The mobile phones industry
CONFORTO, LUCA
2016/2017
Abstract
The time to market entry and the resulting type of competition are crucial factors in business activities, although they could be overlooked during organizations managers’ decision process. Companies can employ several strategies to achieve market leadership taking into account their endogenous characteristics and exogenous variables. In accordance to these, firms might determine to act as first or second movers in a given industry, both exhibiting pros and cons. The first-mover can be easily recognized as a pioneer by customers and exploit initial advantages and dominant position but it faces significant risks and uncertainties. On the contrary, a second mover rallies a more competitive environment whereas it learns from first-mover’s faults. After the exposition of the most important works of literature results relative to first-mover advantages and disadvantages and the drives affecting competition between first and second entrants, we developed the hypotheses constituting the ground for the empirical study. Eventually, the purpose of this elaborate is to analyse how first, second and late entrants have rivalled under particular conditions. A reliable sample of 9 mobile phones companies has been constituted, a sector which represents a technology-intensive and fast-evolving industry. The performed examination has also the scope of attesting the prominence of the role of innovation and imitation strategies: while R&D expenses provide significant findings for all the companies, patents protections offer ambiguous interpretations. Furthermore, we afforded estimates, on a 5 years’ base, regarding the likelihood of surpassing leader which may occur between the current three most important brands operating in the mobile phones marketÈ consentito all'utente scaricare e condividere i documenti disponibili a testo pieno in UNITESI UNIPV nel rispetto della licenza Creative Commons del tipo CC BY NC ND.
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https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14239/7202