KNOWLEDGE INHERITANCE, VERTICAL INTEGRATION, AND ENTRANT SURVIVAL IN THE EARLY US AUTO INDUSTRY

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Argyres, Nicholas; Mostafa, Romel
• 署名单位: Washington University (WUSTL); Western University (University of Western Ontario)
• 刊物名称: ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0001-4273
• DOI: 10.5465/amj.2013.0180
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 1474-1492
• 关键词: transaction costs; automobile-industry; firm survival; capabilities; EVOLUTION; governance; BOUNDARIES; MARKET; performance; experience

摘要

A key finding in the literature on industry evolution and strategy is that knowledge inherited from the founder's previous employer can be an important source of a new firm's capabilities. We analyze the conditions under which knowledge that is useful for carrying out a key value chain activity is inherited, and explore the mechanism through which such an inheritance shapes an entrant's strategies and, in the process, influences its performance. Evidence from the early U.S. auto industry indicates that employee spinoffs generated from incumbents that had integrated a key value chain activity were also more likely to integrate that activity than other entrants, which, we suggest, reflects the application of knowledge inheritance relative to that activity. Moreover, we find that the integration of this key activity, stimulated by knowledge inheritance, contributed to the establishment of defensible strategic positioning, thereby enhancing the survival duration of inheriting spinoffs. We thus link together the phenomena of knowledge inheritance, vertical integration, and strategic positioning to explain entrant performance. Previously, these three phenomena have tended to be treated disparately in the literature, rather than in combination.