Brand reputation, efficiency and the concentration process: a case study
基于欧洲白色家电行业的证据，研究了品牌声誉如何成为竞争中的重要惯性因素，并影响工业集中路径，促使企业更多通过并购而非内部增长来实现扩张。
The evidence from the European white goods industry, discussed in this paper, shows that once a brand segmentation of the market turns out to be sufficiently stable that is when brand-quality reputation becomes an important factor in the competitive game. It represents a strong inertial factor in the growth of firms even if market structure is far from being efficient in terms of plant size. The paper shows how the inertial role of brands has strongly affected the route of industrial concentration: it has been an incentive to mergers and takeovers rather than to internal growth, particularly when demand stabilized. Copyright 1991 by Oxford University Press.