Letting Rivals Come Close or Warding Them Off? The Effects of Substitution Threat on Imitation Deterrence
研究企业如何在阻止资源模仿与避免引发替代品之间权衡，发现替代威胁会降低企业阻止模仿的意愿，挑战了资源必须完全不可模仿才能维持竞争优势的传统观点。
A resource-based theory postulate is that firms must defend their resources against imitation to sustain competitive advantage. However, by deterring imitation, firms may induce rivals to create substitutes. This study shows that, contrary to received wisdom, firms are not uniformly inclined to deter resource imitation. Rather, this inclination decreases in response to substitution threat. By examining how firms manage the trade-off between inimitability and nonsubstitutability, this study suggests that the scenario wherein firms have omnipotent resources that are both inimitable and nonsubstitutable may be unrealistic and that managing the tension between these two attributes is key to sustainable competitive advantage.