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We study whether the early adoption of information technologies provides competitive advantages and examine the source of such advantages. Existing research in this area has failed to differentiate between the advantages arising from the timing of adoption (e.g., asset preemption) and those that are related to higher levels of adoption (e.g., organizational learning). In this paper, we break down these advantages into two components: order of adoption (early vs. late adopters) and level of adoption (high vs. low internal diffusion levels). The empirical analysis examines the adoption and subsequent intrafirm diffusion of the automated teller machine in a sample of Spanish savings banks using a long data panel extending from 1988 to 2004. The results show that the advantages associated with the order of adoption outweigh those associated with the level of adoption and have the potential to be long lasting. Our findings are consistent across various estimation methods, and we assess different performance dimensions (ROA, income, and efficiency). Our modeling and findings have implications for managers and can be applied to the study of the early adoption of modern technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet of Things has received enormous attention. Despite the lucrative potential, this study tries to look beyond the hype to understand how IoT impacts firm performance. Based on the information processing theory, we intend to explore how IoT influences the financial performance of firms. Firms, which realise the urgent need to adopt IoT might encounter a diverse set of challenges, like whether adoption will be profitable, the level of commitment they should devote, and whether to adopt as a first or second-mover. We want to comprehend such adoption challenges on the Indian manufacturing firm's financial performance. This study uses panel data from BSE 500 listed manufacturing firms and conducts multivariate analysis to understand the relationship between the IoT implementation proxies: IoT adoption, first-mover advantage, and firm performance in the light of IoT commitment and experts. The result indicates that IoT implementation has an insignificant effect on manufacturing firm performance. Meanwhile, the consideration of IoT commitment and experts jointly can enable a manufacturing firm to reap significantly positive financial outcomes. In other words, the IoT commitment and expertise positively moderate the relationship. The finding is useful to the decision-makers to address the firm-level adjustment before the mere introduction of IoT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a theoretical framework to address the inherent endogeneity problem in entry-timing research by distinguishing the concept of "first-mover benefits" (FMB) from "first-mover advantages" (FMA)—the former being a counterfactual and (usually) unobserved pure treatment effect, and the latter being an actual observed combination of treatment and selection effects. They differ in the baseline to which the first mover's performance is compared—either to the follower's actual performance (for FMA) or to the first mover's hypothetical performance if it had been a follower (for FMB). We consider the implications of this distinction for entry-order choices, and our formal economic model analyzes this distinction to make predictions about biases arising from using FMA as a proxy to estimate FMB, and also about how FMA, FMB, and their difference are affected by interfirm asymmetries in resources and information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existence of a learning curve in which a firm's costs decline with cumulative experience suggests that early entry provides learning opportunities that create an advantage by reducing future costs relative to later entrants. While prior strategy research has often assumed that learning curves are deterministic and known ex ante to firms, substantial evidence suggests that learning curves are inherently uncertain. If there is uncertainty in the learning curve, then the taken-for-granted wisdom regarding the strategic implications of learning curves may over- or under-emphasize the value of early entry. We consider two forms of uncertainty—prospective (future costs) and contemporaneous (current costs). We demonstrate computationally that while prospective uncertainty in the learning curve enhances the benefits of early entry, contemporaneous uncertainty reduces these benefits. Further, we examine the implications of these findings for competition and learning curve spillovers between leader and laggard firms. Recognizing learning curve uncertainty highlights a novel form of spillovers that do not affect expected cost but rather affect uncertainty about cost. Our core insight is that when learning curve uncertainty is large relative to the expected learning rate, it is uncertainty, rather than expectations about this rate, that determines the extent of early-mover advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Why do some songs and musicians become successful while others do not? We show that one of the reasons may be the “first-mover advantage”: artists that stand at the foundation of new music genres tend to be more successful than those who join these genres later on. To test this hypothesis, we have analyzed a massive dataset of over 920,000 songs, including 110 music genres: 10 chosen intentionally and preregistered, and 100 chosen randomly. For this, we collected the data from two music services: Spotify, which provides detailed information about songs’ success (the precise number of times each song was listened to), and Every Noise at Once, which provides detailed genre tags for musicians. 91 genres, out of 110, show the first-mover advantage—clearly suggesting that it is an important mechanism in music success and evolution.

Why do some songs and musicians become successful while others do not? We show that one of the reasons may be the "first-mover advantage": artists that stand at the foundation of new music genres tend to be more successful than those who join these genres later on. To test this hypothesis, we have analyzed a massive dataset of over 920,000 songs, including 110 music genres: 10 chosen intentionally and preregistered, and 100 chosen randomly. For this, we collected the data from two music services: Spotify, which provides detailed information about songs' success (the precise number of times each song was listened to), and Every Noise at Once, which provides detailed genre tags for musicians. 91 genres, out of 110, show the first-mover advantage—clearly suggesting that it is an important mechanism in music success and evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In November 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the 'Commission') proposed rule amendments that would require, among other things, open-end mutual funds to implement a mandatory swing pricing regime under certain circumstances (the 'Proposals'). To ensure that funds receive order information with sufficient time to make a swing pricing determination, the Proposals would require funds to set a hard cut-off time for the receipt of purchase and redemption orders. Currently, the vast majority of investments in open-end mutual funds are made through intermediaries and retirement plans, such that investors who submit orders to intermediaries and retirement plans before the time the fund has established for calculating its net asset value (NAV) generally receive the same day's NAV, even if the fund receives the order information from the intermediary or retirement plan after NAV is calculated. This is how mutual fund pricing has operated in the US for over 50 years. The Proposals would upend current operations. Under the Proposals, an investor's order would have to be received by the fund - not a financial intermediary or a retirement plan - before the cut-off time set by the fund for calculating NAV in order to be eligible for the same day's NAV. If adopted as proposed, the Proposals would require extensive changes to mutual fund pricing systems and infrastructure in the US. In this paper, we acknowledge the arguments against the Proposals by an overwhelming majority of industry commenters and, without undercutting those arguments, we explore practical, regulatory and compliance considerations for funds seeking to better understand how the Proposals might affect their day-to-day operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Determining how environmental policy affects export competitiveness is essential for achieving win–win objectives in environmental governance and trade development. We examine whether and how China's emissions reduction policy declines the firm's export product quality during the 11th five-year plan via the difference-in-difference-in-difference method. The main findings of this paper are as follows: (i) Compared with less polluting industries, the export production quality declines 5.74% and 3.31%, respectively, as the pollution reduction targets of SO2 and chemical oxygen demand (COD) are set 1 unit higher in more polluting industries. (ii) The negative effect is greater in Western regions as well as state-owned firms. (iii) Local officials facing promotion pressure are more incentivized to raise emissions reduction goals, as well as greater increasing emissions abatement costs, thus leading to greater declines in export quality. However, the innovation compensation effect still remains. (iv) The negative effects can be mitigated through product switching that contributes to resource allocation within firms towards their core products, or executing the first-mover advantage in response to the emissions reduction plan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the age of e-commerce, consumers tend to base their purchasing decisions on online information, including the sales volume and the online reviews of products. To investigate the impact of such behaviour on firms' competition strategy, we built a two-period model, which includes a leader firm that exists in the market for both periods and a follower firm that only enters the market in the second period. We consider three circumstances of online information: with no information, with sales volume information only, and with both sales volume and online reviews information. We show that when only sales volume information is available, the leader firm can always gain a competitive advantage over the follower firm in the second period. However, with the availability of both sales volume and online reviews, under certain conditions, the follower firm will be more competitive in the second period. Furthermore, neither sales volume information nor online reviews can guarantee the leader firm a higher profit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a model where the managers of two firms decide about adopting a sustainable production technology (or product). It demonstrates under what conditions a firm experiences a first mover disadvantage from going green, which may potentially be overcome by a sustainability agreement serving as a device for equilibrium selection in a coordination game with multiple equilibria. If the technology adoption game is, however, a prisoner's dilemma, the sustainability agreement must be structured like a hardcore cartel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information technology-enabled platforms are playing an increasingly important role in the global economy. While some successful platforms entered their respective markets as pioneers, others were able to achieve market dominance despite starting as followers. This study investigates the conditions under which first-mover advantage (FMA) or second-mover advantage (SMA) occurs in a platform market, and derives their equilibrium order of market entries and optimal market entry timing. The first three determinants of FMA and SMA we identify are (1) quality improvement rate of the second mover, (2) length of demand window, and (3) length of market growth phase of demand window. When the two companies’ order of market entries is predetermined, the second mover having a higher initial platform quality than the first mover guarantees SMA, whereas the first mover having a higher initial platform quality than the second mover does not ensure FMA. In the latter case, the three determinants are needed to determine FMA and SMA. When the two companies’ order of market entries is endogenous, if any of the three determinants is sufficiently small, preemptive entry, in which both companies prefer to move early, is the equilibrium; otherwise, sequential entry, in which one company prefers to move early and the other prefers to move late, becomes the equilibrium in most cases. We also find that strong (same-side) network effects can weaken SMA and increase the possibility that both companies prefer early market entry, whereas strong cross-side network effects may strengthen SMA and increase the possibility that both companies prefer late market entry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we aim to determine the importance of psychological pressure on performance in sequential tournaments. We make use of penalty shootouts in soccer and test the presence of first‐mover advantage. Shootouts in soccer is a formidable framework because it is a natural experiment where teams compete in a sequence whose order is determined by the random outcome of a coin toss. Using data from all 663 penalty shootouts in all major competitions since first implemented in 1970, we fail to identify statistically significant differences in winning probabilities for teams kicking first or second in the shootout sequence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Northern Sea Route (NSR) is an emerging alternative route to the Suez Canal; however, inconclusive research exists on its benefits and viability. This paper uses a two-stage Delphi approach to collect qualitative data from experts, on what actions Nordic countries (Nordic countries are Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland, as well as the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Åland (Nordic Co-operation, 2020)) can undertake to prepare themselves to enter NSR and capture potential benefits deriving from trading in global transport networks. By conceptually developing a framework based on first-mover advantage (FMA) and dynamic capabilities theory (DCT), this paper empirically identifies a path to develop capabilities that could allow stakeholders to reduce logistics costs through collaborations in NSR. Our paper has made a twofold contribution, first to literature by linking FMA/DCT in a single framework and elaborating it in a global transportation and logistics context. Second, a practical contribution by identifying how countries along the NSR, and specifically Nordic countries, can capture and maximise its benefits by using the right policy framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing researches verify Porter hypothesis mainly through one of its core establishment paths, innovation compensation, but ignore the other one, first-mover advantages. This paper considers both these paths and further distinguishes environmental R&D and non-environmental R&D in empirical study. Based on the smooth transition principle of "charge to tax" in China, this paper, taking Chinese A-share listed companies that have disclosed environmental R&D from 2008 to 2017 as sample and predicting environmental tax by pollution charge, analyzes the relationship between environmental tax and firm performance and its transmission mechanism. First, our results show that environmental tax can improve firm performance, and this influence remains in long term. After introducing instrument variable (IV) to deal with endogeneity and conducting a series of robustness tests, we then find that the relationship between environmental tax and firm performance is a robust causality. Eventually, we apply mediating effect model to further confirm the two core paths of Porter hypothesis by manifesting that environmental tax can affect firm performance through both innovation compensation and first-mover advantages. Our contributions are revealing the micro mechanism of environmental tax on firm performance, providing evidence from China to support strong Porter hypothesis, and offering some key points regarding environmental tax reform and corporate green strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable technology increasingly relies on highly complex basic science, and basic research policies play a dominant role in the long-term process of sustainable technology innovation. The formation of socio-technological systems around green technology is closely linked to both the sustainable and industrial targets of nations. However, there is currently no formal model that encompasses various technology and cross-national sectors, which is necessary for analysing collaboration in relation to new scientific knowledge and new sustainable technology. Nevertheless, empirical evidence suggests that such a dynamic is pervasive. Our study aims to resolve this issue by developing an analytical model that integrates scientific research policy and innovation policy. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this model by analysing the cross-sectoral and cross-national dynamics of U.S. and Chinese policies for high energy density lithium-ion battery technologies essential to electric vehicles. We apply our model to the case of how China was able to emerge as a frontrunner in commercialisation despite the U.S.' early head start by way of 'legitimate free-riding' and 'complex cross-sectional policy' mechanisms. This case study enables us to formalise novel methods of analysing technological innovation over time, opening the door for application to a wide range of additional cases moving forward. • Comparative analysis of U.S. and Chinese policy mixes for EV lithium-ion batteries • Original panel dataset from 4450 primary source archival documents (1991–2019) • Transnational institutional dynamics impact scientific knowledge valuation process. • Policy dynamics shape different socio-technological and socio-economic changes. • Transnational knowledge transfer can determine who benefits from basic research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have applied the "minimal" quantization scheme to investigate the quantization of the classical Stackelberg oligopoly. In particular, we have examined how the quantum entanglement affects the first-mover advantage in the Stackelberg game. It is found that the first-mover advantage can be destroyed and turn into a disadvantage under appropriate conditions. That is, the second-mover advantage can be realized in the quantum Stackelberg oligopoly. This surprising feature raises a challenging question to each of the players in the quantum game: "Should I move first or not?" [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our field experiment analyzes the influence of psychological traits on performance in sequential games. It uses handball penalties thrown under individual, team, or tournament incentives in the ABBA sequence. Considering the single moves of these games, player A and player B are taking turns in being the first-mover. We find no significant first-mover advantage. However, we observe that player A performs better than player B under tournament incentives and if he or she is confident enough. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I study the conditions under which a CSR leader, that is a firm which commits to invest in socially responsible activities prior to its competitor, can develop a first-mover advantage. A price-setting duopoly market with horizontally differentiated products is considered, where firms can increase the willingness to pay of the consumers of their products by investing in socially responsible activities. It is shown that if the investment in CSR is perfectly specific to the CSR leader and does not spill over to the CSR follower, the CSR leader achieves higher profits. Hence, a first-mover advantage arises. If however, CSR investment spills over to and hence benefits also the CSR follower by increasing the follower sales, then a second-mover advantage might arise for the follower. A characterization is provided for the influence of the intensity of competition and the level of spillovers on the relative and absolute level of CSR activities and the firms' incentives to engage in CSR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the publication of some pioneering studies at the end of the twentieth century and the dissemination of the results of important work carried out in the 2000 as it seems no longer necessary to theoretically justify the relevance of an examination of the handwritten context of the texts we are studying.

The behavioral decision-making and negotiations literature usually advocates a first-mover advantage, explained the anchoring and adjustment heuristic. Thus, buyers, who according to the social norm, tend to move second, strive to make the first offer to take advantage of this effect. On the other hand, negotiation practitioners and experts often advise the opposite, i.e., moving second. These opposite recommendations regarding first offers are termed the Practitioner-Researcher paradox. In the current article, we investigate the circumstances under which buyers would make less favorable first offers than they would receive were they to move second, focusing on low power and anxiety during negotiations. Across two studies, we manipulated negotiators' best alternative to the negotiated agreement (BATNA) and measured their anxiety. Our results show that, when facing neutral-power sellers, weak buyers who feel anxious would make inferior first offers (Studies 1 and 2). When facing low-power sellers, weak buyers would make inferior first offers across all anxiety levels (Study 2). Our findings shed light on two critical factors leading to the Practitioner-Researcher paradox: power and anxiety, and offer concrete guidelines to buyers who find themselves at low power and highly anxious during negotiations.

The behavioral decision-making and negotiations literature usually advocates a first-mover advantage, explained the anchoring and adjustment heuristic. Thus, buyers, who according to the social norm, tend to move second, strive to make the first offer to take advantage of this effect. On the other hand, negotiation practitioners and experts often advise the opposite, i.e., moving second. These opposite recommendations regarding first offers are termed the Practitioner-Researcher paradox. In the current article, we investigate the circumstances under which buyers would make less favorable first offers than they would receive were they to move second, focusing on low power and anxiety during negotiations. Across two studies, we manipulated negotiators' best alternative to the negotiated agreement (BATNA) and measured their anxiety. Our results show that, when facing neutral-power sellers, weak buyers who feel anxious would make inferior first offers (Studies 1 and 2). When facing low-power sellers, weak buyers would make inferior first offers across all anxiety levels (Study 2). Our findings shed light on two critical factors leading to the Practitioner-Researcher paradox: power and anxiety, and offer concrete guidelines to buyers who find themselves at low power and highly anxious during negotiations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper models the timing of price competition in a differentiated duopoly as endogenously determined and studies the timing's impact on the first-mover advantage in establishing product position. It is shown that a firm's location advantage—being closer to a majority of consumers—leads to the strategic disadvantage of leading in the price game. When product positioning occurs sequentially, endogenous timing in pricing results in the second entrant's locating farther away from its rival; and, although the first entrant becomes the price leader, the magnitude of the advantage for the first mover in the location (entry) game is larger, as compared with the case of simultaneous pricing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Managing production level after the launch of a new product is a challenging problem and is critical to the overall profit of manufacturing firms. The problem involves concepts from different fields including production planning, manufacturing flexibility, forecasting, and marketing. In this paper, the gaps in the existing literature are first illustrated. With the goal of addressing the identified research gaps, agent-based modeling and simulation is employed to analyze the performance of different production planning strategies under various levels of volume flexibility and consumer social network structures. The key distinguishing feature of the developed model is the capability of the manufacturing firm to adjust its production level by forecasting the future demand. The analysis of the simulation outputs yields substantial results by challenging some intuitive and traditional understandings of manufacturing systems. The paper also provides a discussion on managerial implications of the results in order to provide the managers with guidelines on the implementation of the model in real-world diffusion environments. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Considerable attention goes to whether there is a “first-mover advantage” among organizations. Technical mechanisms have been considered for this advantage, such as learning and occupancy of preferred market segments. We argue that first movers may also benefit from a social identity advantage because being identified as “the original” in a market implies authenticity. When first-mover advantage is based on such an identity, market memory is important. Initially, audiences distinguish the originality of the first mover, but as time passes, such differences are less recognizable. We find evidence of this pattern––and that organizations are constrained from expanding beyond where their identity is established. The results suggest the usefulness of a sociological approach to understanding the first-mover strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article investigates the applicability of blue ocean strategy in regard to low-cost airlines in the civil airline industry. To do so, the commercial offers of selected airlines were compared to validate any attempts to apply the blue ocean strategy concept. This is followed by examining the time limitation of the concept in a competitive environment and is illustrated by the changes in the industry for the past 30 years and a comparison of offers from similar companies. The third issue is the evaluation of the further contribution of blue ocean strategy when it is recognized as time-limited. The importance of first-mover advantage, which could be based on the ability to capture an economy of scale and advantageously shape the market, is also discussed.

Purpose: This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies. Design: This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context. Findings: First-mover advantage is known to bestow pioneering firms with considerable dominance and control over a market. Yet FMA does not necessarily last, with later entrants able to adapt and innovate better and in turn, gain preeminence in a market. Originality: The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop a model of the feedback between mutual fund outflows and asset illiquidity. Following a market shock, alert investors anticipate the impact on a fund's net asset value (NAV) of other investors' redemptions and exit first at favorable prices. This first-mover advantage may lead to fund failure through a cycle of falling prices and increasing redemptions. Our analysis shows that (i) the first-mover advantage introduces a nonlinear dependence between a market shock and the aggregate impact of redemptions on the fund's NAV; (ii) as a consequence, there is a critical magnitude of the shock beyond which redemptions brings down the fund; (iii) properly designed swing pricing transfers liquidation costs from the fund to redeeming investors and, by removing the nonlinearity stemming from the first-mover advantage, it reduces these costs and prevents fund failure. Achieving these objectives requires a larger swing factor at larger levels of outflows. The swing factor for one fund may also depend on policies followed by other funds. This paper was accepted by David Simchi-Levi, finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the optimal design of round-robin tournaments with three symmetric players. We characterize the subgame-perfect equilibrium in these tournaments with either one or two prizes. Our results show that the players who wish to maximize their expected payoffs or their probabilities of winning have different preferences about the order of games under tournaments with one or two prizes. We analyze the optimal allocations of players for a designer who wishes to maximize the players' expected total effort in the tournaments with one and two prizes, and by comparing between them, it is demonstrated that in order to maximize the players' expected total effort the designer should allocate only one prize. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to disentangle the effect of switching costs as an isolating mechanism on the presence of first-mover advantage in the services industries. Study design/methodology/approach: This study employs confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling, performing mediation analysis to answer the research question. Sample and data: A sample of 106 firms in four services industries and 968 responses from current customers in Kuwait were used in the study. Results: The results show that switching costs operate as a mediating mechanism that helps explain the presence of first-mover advantage. They show that six dimensions (pre-switching search and evaluation costs, costs of lost performance, uncertainty costs, post-switching behavioral and cognitive costs, sunk costs, and setup costs) of switching costs lock-in customers for early entrants. Originality/value: This study provides empirical evidence that a direct firstmover effect is evident in the service industries in Kuwait. It also disentangles the role of switching cost as a mediator and uncovers the dimensions of switching costs that explains how entry timing may generate a competitive advantage. Research limitations/implications: Entrepreneurs and potential market entrants should not only consider the overall role of switching costs of the best time to enter the market, but also the differential effects each dimension of switching costs has on protecting the first-mover advantage. The empirical investigation of the multifaceted role of switching costs on first-mover advantage in the Arab region supports public policymaking to develop a local entrepreneurial ecosystem and anti-trust policies that allow for new venture entries and survival in markets dominated by incumbents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a novel experimental design to investigate the strategic value of making a public payoff sacrifice ("burning money") in a setting modelled after the battle-of-the-sexes game. Unlike prior studies, we find that subjects choose to burn money in a significant portion of decision trials and that burning makes the first movers more likely to achieve their preferred stage two equilibrium outcome. No such effect is observed in a control treatment where money burning is triggered unintentionally. This suggests that payoff sacrifices are important as deliberate signals of one's further intentions, and can be a source of strategic advantage different from that stemming from being the first party to move. These results are supported by an analysis of subjects' eye movements, which reveals patterns consistent with forward induction reasoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to show that the product proliferation strategy in multi‐product duopoly is first‐mover advantage. We consider simultaneous and Stackelberg variety competitions. A firm producing more varieties charges a higher price, produces larger total quantities, and earns higher total revenue. When firms sequentially choose the masses of varieties and then simultaneously decide prices, the leader produces more varieties and enjoys first‐mover advantage. The masses of varieties can be regarded as strategic substitutes in the same way that quantities are. Finally, the market is likely to provide too few varieties relative to the social optimum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]