THE SIMPLICITY OF COMPETITIVE REPERTOIRES: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS
研究了企业竞争行动集的简单性，即企业是否只专注于少数核心活动，并发现这种简单性受组织与环境因素影响，且可能损害后续绩效，尤其在不确定和增长时期。
This research explores the notion of competitive simplicity: a tendency of some firms to concentrate intensely on just a few central activities. Our focus here is the simplicity inherent in the repertoire of concrete, market-oriented actions used by companies to compete: these actions include product introductions, pricing or advertising decisions, and changes in market scope. The simplicity of a competitive repertoire can be assessed by its range of actions and its degree of concentration on one or a few dominant types of actions. We argue that competitive simplicity is largely a function of organizational and environmental properties that attenuate managerial search or restrict knowledge of competitive alternatives. These properties include good performance, munificent, homogeneous or certain markets, a lack of breadth in competitive experiences, and the complacency that may accompany age and size. Paradoxically, although good past performance may contribute to simplicity, simplicity can hurt subsequent performance, especially during periods of uncertainty and growth. Many of these ideas were borne out in a study of the major carriers of the post-deregulation domestic airline industry.