Reconceptualizing imitation: implications for dynamic capabilities, innovation, and competitive advantage

Strategic imitation occurs when a firm purposefully attempts to reproduce, in whole or part, other firms’ products, processes, capabilities, technologies, structures, and/or decisions in its pursuit of competitive advantage. Imitation is a pervasive firm behavior, and the literature relating to imitation is growing rapidly. In the resource-based view, for example, imitation is core because it is assumed to undermine inter-firm performance heterogeneity and erode leaders’ competitive advantage. We argue that work on imitation is circumscribed by a core set of assumptions: imitation is easy, weak firms imitate, uncertainty promotes imitation, and there is only one imitation strategy. We review the origins and implications of these assumptions in the extant literature, and, more importantly, expose a set of emerging counter-assumptions. In light of these counter-assumptions, we propose foundations for a new conceptual model of imitation that focuses on evolutionary dynamics. We suggest that imitation may be a key source of dynamic capabilities and innovation, and in turn it gives rise to competitive advantage

Exploratory and exploitative adaptation in turbulent and complex landscapes

Using a simulation of organizational adaptation in turbulent and complex landscapes, I examine how the optimal balance between exploration and exploitation is influenced by the organization’s task environment. I find that, contrary to conventional wisdom, increasing exploration relative to exploitation is not always the optimal response to increased environmental turbulence or complexity. Turbulence is found to have a curvilinear effect on the optimal share of exploratory versus exploitative adaptation, with the relative importance of exploitation greatest at moderate degrees of turbulence. While environmental complexity is found to have a generally positive effect on the optimal share of exploration, the effects of complexity and turbulence are found to interact and, jointly, to increase the relative importance of exploitative adaptation over exploratory adaptation. These findings suggest that the proper exploration–exploitation balance depends, in complex ways, on the pressures for global versus local adaptability posed by the interaction of turbulence and complexity