Managerial cognition and the mimetic adoption of market positions: what you see is what you do
研究了管理者在放弃原有市场定位时，因不确定性而模仿其他组织采纳已有市场定位的行为，并通过美国广播电台格式的扩散数据验证了理论。
Managers planning to abandon a market position need to find a promising alternative, and face a choice of inventing a new market position or entering an existing one. The great uncertainty on the consequences of different actions leads them to rely on other organizations for information on how to compete, making adoption of existing market positions likely. Their wish to avoid direct rivalry and maximize growth leads them to seek out information on new market positions with few incumbents. As a result, recently innovated market positions are mimetically adopted by organizations that can easily observe previous adoptions and see them as relevant to their market situations, increasing the market differentiation. This theory is tested and supported by analysis of the spread of new radio formats in the United States. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.