Online market entry: the motivations for imitation across retailer types

This study examines the motivations for imitation in retailers’ online channel entry. Extant literature suggests that legitimacy and efficiency are the primary motivators for firms to imitate. We develop hypotheses which center on the belief that not all firm types would use the same motivator for deciding to imitate and enter the online market; legitimacy would be the driving force for some retailer types while efficiency would be the motivator for others. We test our hypotheses on a unique data collected from multiple sources. Our findings confirm that the motivators for imitation vary across retailer types. Bhatnagar, Amit and Nikolaeva, Ralitza and Ghose, Sanjoy, Online Market Entry: The Motivations for Imitation Across Retailer Types (November 2014). Managerial and Decision Economics, Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=252208

Online market entry: the motivations for imitation across retailer types

This study examines the motivations for imitation in retailers’ online channel entry. Extant literature suggests that legitimacy and efficiency are the primary motivators for firms to imitate. We develop hypotheses which center on the belief that not all firm types would use the same motivator for deciding to imitate and enter the online market; legitimacy would be the driving force for some retailer types while efficiency would be the motivator for others. We test our hypotheses on a unique data collected from multiple sources. Our findings confirm that the motivators for imitation vary across retailer types. Bhatnagar, Amit and Nikolaeva, Ralitza and Ghose, Sanjoy, Online Market Entry: The Motivations for Imitation Across Retailer Types (November 2014). Managerial and Decision Economics, Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=252208

E‐commerce adoption in the retail sector: empirical insights

Purpose of this paper To investigate the determinants of e-commerce adoption in the retail sector using duration analysis. Design/methodology/approach The study proposes a conceptual model based on technology adoption and population ecology models. It identifies specific determinant factors organized under three areas: perceived benefits, organizational readiness, and external influences. Duration analysis is applied to data on 392 retailers

Strategic Determinants of Web Site Traffic in On-Line Retailing

Web site traffic is a necessary condition for success in Internet retailing. This study empirically tests the effects of e-tailer characteristics and site visibility enhancers on Web site traffic, using data on traffic to top e-tailers from the 2000 holiday season. The results, in contradiction to much of the theoretical literature, suggest that order of entry and off-line advertising are not significant Web site traffic drivers. Media presence, however, turns out to be a very important factor. This is an intriguing finding, because many e-tailers that spent a great deal on advertising at the time of data collection were later forced to exit the market. In light of this finding, e-tailers competing for consumer mind share should recognize media coverage as a viable, although less easily achievable, alternative to more expensive advertising campaigns. Other findings include the importance of quasi-commodity products and larger product assortments as traffic drivers in the electronic marketplace

Iinterorganizational imitation heuristics arising from cognitive frames

The literature on organizational imitation mostly disregards its cognitive aspect. Yet, imitation is a cognitive heuristic for complex strategic decisions. The current essay draws a unifying framework of different models of imitation through a cognitive lens in the context of innovation adoptions. It describes the interaction of the framing of imitation and the organization’s evaluation of an innovation. This interaction of threat and opportunity categorizations results in the use of various combinations of the two most popular imitation heuristics – “imitate the successful” and “imitate the majority” – as managers decide to copy predecessors in order to improve the status quo or to avoid losing it. Since the framings dictate different imitation timings, the speed of innovation diffusion depends on these interactions. However, as different cognitive frames may trigger the same heuristics, generalizations about the adoption motivation based on its timing can be unrealistic..

Interorganizational imitation heuristics arising from cognitive frames

The literature on organizational imitation mostly disregards its cognitive aspect. Yet, imitation is a cognitive heuristic. The study draws a unifying framework of imitation theories through a cognitive lens in the context of innovation adoptions. The premise is that organizations imitate in order to improve the status quo or to avoid losing it. The interaction of the framing of imitation and the organization's evaluation of an innovation as threats or opportunities results in the use of combinations of the two most popular imitation heuristics – “imitate the successful” and “imitate the majority.” Since the framings dictate different imitation timings, the speed of innovation diffusion depends on these interactions. The study contributes to the organizational learning literature by proposing that social learning is subject to interpretations resulting in the use of different imitation heuristics. Its contribution to the decision-making literature is that complex strategic decisions employ imitation heuristics from Gigerenzer's adaptive toolbox.info:eu-repo/semantics/submittedVersio