Facing a highly competitve environment, companies usually manipulate all kinds of strategies to succeed in their business. One of these manipulative strategies is the timing of entering the market. For the most past, studies on timing of entry have asserted that early entrants could help to build lasting competitive advantages, which is so called the ¡§first-mover advantages.¡¨ However, in recent studies, studies have proved that some late movers could also perform quite well, or even better than those early movers in the market. In this paper, we focus exclusively on those successful late movers and try to figure out how they win a victory over the first mover in the market. We also adopt both the RBV and social capital theory to interpret the process of building late-mover advantages and forming first-mover disadvantages. The paper utilizes the case of TFT-LCD industry and the wholesaling industry in Taiwan to illustrate the issues involved. After interviewing some top managers and analyze related data, we get five discoveries: (1)The resources and social capital of a company do affect its enrty timing. (2)Different industries would have different kind of key resources and social capitals, and the reason for late-movers to beat first-movers and to win in the last is because late-movers could allot its own resources more effectively. (3)Late-mover advantages and first-mover disadvantages are proved to exist in the market. Besides, the content of different industries and companies would be different, too. (4)"High uncertainty of the market¡¨ is the challenge that first-movers are sure to encounter, but what counts is that whether the first-mover could conquer this problem by using its own resources successfully or not. (5)The relationship of resources and (dis)advantages are not only one way direction. Companies¡¦ resources would affect its own (dis)advantages, and on the other hand, (dis)advantages would also turn back to affect the forming of its own resources.

Procter & Gamble has operated nearly 300 branded products and outsold in more than 140 nations worldwide these days. Among these products, P&G has its innovative research and developes abilities to introduce the brand new infant merchandise ¡V Pampers diapers. P&G is usually not a first mover but Pampers is the state of art product for little infants in the globe. Soon after Pampers¡¦ existence, this unique product has benefited countless mothers to nourish their little ones. In many years, Pampers has played the pioneer character and its leadership in the baby diapers market. Thus, this research study will be focused on P&G¡¦s product, Pampers, to discover P&G¡¦s first mover advantages. In the meantime, this paper will also study how much advantage first mover has in the consumer products industry, where these advantages come from, and how to maintain them. In addition, this research study will examine other unique competitiveness in Taiwan¡¦s diapers¡¦ market for infants. This research study has discovered that Pampers has several first mover advantages and they are as follows: 1. The sequence of entering a market is not necessary related to the market shares but a brand has the most effectiveness when it first enters the market 2. When this particular industry has low competiveness but high entering barriers, or when a specific product lifecycle is in the introduction stage or growing stage, the first mover has more advantages when entering this market 3. The entering sequence has effectiveness to the price elasticity, production cost, and advertisement cost. The marketing combination has higher effectiveness in the long turn market 4. In the high penetration market, the first mover has more powerful competitive advantages 5. The marketing abilities will enhance first mover¡¦s brand equity

Despite the fact that most firms are late entrants in any product market, research on how to achieve a late-mover advantage is limited and lags behind the theoretical work on first-mover advantage. The strategic choice a late mover can utilize to compete against the pioneer is largely underdeveloped. Further, extant studies provide contradictory arguments and predictions regarding the efficacy of two basic late entry strategies: an enhancing strategy (providing a late entrant with enhanced features along existing product attributes) and a distinctive strategy (adding new or unique features to a late entrant' offering). The goal of this dissertation is to better understand the underlying behavioral mechanisms that enable a late entrant to compete with a successful pioneer and thereby address this inconsistency in the literature. Taking a category-based learning perspective, it is proposed that new brands are learned through a comparison process with existing brands. In the process, common features are evaluated in a category-based mode while unique features are processed in a piecemeal fashion. Two behavioral mechanisms are identified — discrepancy effects (i.e., perceived differentiation) which add to the late entrant's visibility and attractiveness, and ambiguity effects (comparison difficulty and perceived performance risk) that lessen the late entrant's attractiveness. Product category familiarity is proposed as the key moderator that affects the salience of each behavioral mechanism and hence the effectiveness of late entry strategies. Three experiments were designed to test the proposed perspective. It was found that common features are the focus of comparison in unfamiliar product classes and unique features receive particular attention in familiar product classes. Accordingly, ambiguity effects become more salient in unfamiliar product categories while differentiation effects are more prominent in familiar product cases. Further, a distinctive strategy is both more differentiated and more ambiguous than an enhancing strategy. Thus, a distinctive strategy is more effective in a familiar product class due to its attention-grabbing nature. An enhancing strategy is more successful in a novel or unfamiliar product class because of low levels of ambiguity. These findings provide important implications for product entry and positioning strategies as well as for further research. / Ph. D.

Quality of a prescription drug is uncertain to patients, physicians and even the manufacturer of the drug. Because this uncertainty can deter physicians from prescribing the drug, it is important to investigate how various marketing communication activities help reveal the true quality of its product. In particular, this study investigates publicity and advertising under quality uncertainty. Chapter 1 studies the effect of publicity on consumer demand with a reduced form approach. Chapter 2 structurally investigates the roles of detailing and publicity when the information spill-over is present. Both chapters study the market of anti-cholesterol drugs (statins). Chapter 1 investigates the effects of publicity (media coverage) on consumer demand. The main obstacle to measuring the impact of publicity is that data on media coverage are difficult to interpret. To overcome this obstacle, we propose a new way to code information presented in news articles, mapping the information to a multi-dimensional attribute space. We combine our publicity data with data on sales, detailing, medical journal advertising, direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) and landmark clinical trial outcomes, and estimate a demand model. Our results suggest that not all forms of publicity are equal. In chapter 2, we study consumer learning about scientific evidence and its impact on demand for pharmaceutical products by using the Bayesian learning model. Unlike previous literature, our learning model allows consumer’s prior quality perceptions to be correlated across brands. This unique feature of the model allows us to investigate information spill-over effects across brands. The information spill-over allows late entrants to free-ride on first movers’ investment in clinical trials and marketing activities and to gain late mover advantage. In addition to using product level market share data, we supplement them with switching rates and discontinuing rates. The switching rate data are particularly useful for taking the presence of switching costs into consideration, which has been ignored in the literature using product-level data. Our estimated structural model has implications for managers in allocating resources to various types of marketing activities more efficiently and helps forecast returns of clinical trials that are sponsored by pharmaceutical firms.

Quality of a prescription drug is uncertain to patients, physicians and even the manufacturer of the drug. Because this uncertainty can deter physicians from prescribing the drug, it is important to investigate how various marketing communication activities help reveal the true quality of its product. In particular, this study investigates publicity and advertising under quality uncertainty. Chapter 1 studies the effect of publicity on consumer demand with a reduced form approach. Chapter 2 structurally investigates the roles of detailing and publicity when the information spill-over is present. Both chapters study the market of anti-cholesterol drugs (statins). Chapter 1 investigates the effects of publicity (media coverage) on consumer demand. The main obstacle to measuring the impact of publicity is that data on media coverage are difficult to interpret. To overcome this obstacle, we propose a new way to code information presented in news articles, mapping the information to a multi-dimensional attribute space. We combine our publicity data with data on sales, detailing, medical journal advertising, direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) and landmark clinical trial outcomes, and estimate a demand model. Our results suggest that not all forms of publicity are equal. In chapter 2, we study consumer learning about scientific evidence and its impact on demand for pharmaceutical products by using the Bayesian learning model. Unlike previous literature, our learning model allows consumer’s prior quality perceptions to be correlated across brands. This unique feature of the model allows us to investigate information spill-over effects across brands. The information spill-over allows late entrants to free-ride on first movers’ investment in clinical trials and marketing activities and to gain late mover advantage. In addition to using product level market share data, we supplement them with switching rates and discontinuing rates. The switching rate data are particularly useful for taking the presence of switching costs into consideration, which has been ignored in the literature using product-level data. Our estimated structural model has implications for managers in allocating resources to various types of marketing activities more efficiently and helps forecast returns of clinical trials that are sponsored by pharmaceutical firms.

Bakgrund: Ett vanligt förekommande antagande inom företagsekonomin är att företag som är först in på en marknad ofta har långtgående konkurrensfördelar som efterföljande företag har svårt att konkurrera med. På senare tid har forskningens användbarhet börjat bli ifrågasatt. Det empiriska underlaget som forskningsfältet vilar på kritiseras för att vara för homogent. Forskningen är ofta gjord på industriella företag med specifika inträdesbarriärer. Syfte: Syftet med studien är att undersöka faktorerna som avgör en first-movers fördelar samt resultatet av fördelarna. Studien undersöker företag som levererar färdiga matkassar på internet i Sverige. Med hjälp av en metodologisk triangulering kommer ett bidrag att göras till forskningsfältet. Teoretiskt perspektiv: Det teoretiska ramverk som använts i undersökningen är first-mover advantage och Later-entrant advantage. Avgränsning: Undersökningen är avgränsad till att undersöka registrerade bolag i Sverige som levererar färdigplanerade matkassar på internet. Urvalet för den kvantitativa undersökningen består av 15 företag. I den kvalitativa undersökningen, består urvalet av 5 företag. Metod: Undersökningen är uppdelad i två delar där två olika metoder användes. Dels en kvantitativ undersökning och en kvalitativ undersökning. En metodtriangulering genomfördes för att öka samstämmigheten i undersökningen. Information om de 15 företagen hämtades från olika typer av dokument, som årsredovisningar och pressmeddelanden. I den kvalitativa undersökningen genomfördes semistrukturerade intervjuer med olika nyckelpersoner på företagen

Background: A common assumption in business research is that first-movers in new markets often tends to have competitive advantages that sequent companies find difficult to compete with. Recently the formal research usability has begun to be questioned. The empirical basis there search of this area rests on, is criticized of being too homogenous. The research that’s been done have often focused on specific industries with certain types of entry barriers. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study if there are benefits to being a first-mover in the industry for grocery bags online. The study will use a methodological triangulation in an effort to make a methodological contribution in this research field. Theory: The theoretical framework used in the study is First-mover advantage and Later-entrant advantage. Delimitations: The quantitative part of the study will analyze 15 companies dealing with grocery bags online in Sweden. In the qualitative part of the study a delineation of the population will be made. Five companies were chosen for this part of the study. Methodology: A methodological triangulation was used to increase coherence in the study. Information about the 15 companies consisted of different types of documents such as annual reports and press releases. In the qualitative part of the study semi-structured interviews with different respondents at the different companies was done. / Bakgrund: Ett vanligt förekommande antagande inom företagsekonomin är att företag som är först in på en marknad ofta har långtgående konkurrensfördelar som efterföljande företag har svårt att konkurrera med. På senare tid har forskningens användbarhet börjat bli ifrågasatt. Det empiriska underlaget som forskningsfältet vilar på kritiseras för att vara för homogent. Forskningen är ofta gjord på industriella företag med specifika inträdesbarriärer. Syfte: Syftet med studien är att undersöka faktorerna som avgör en first-movers fördelar samt resultatet av fördelarna. Studien undersöker företag som levererar färdiga matkassar på internet i Sverige. Med hjälp av en metodologisk triangulering kommer ett bidrag att göras till forskningsfältet. Teoretiskt perspektiv: Det teoretiska ramverk som använts i undersökningen är first-mover advantage och Later-entrant advantage. Avgränsning: Undersökningen är avgränsad till att undersöka registrerade bolag i Sverige som levererar färdigplanerade matkassar på internet. Urvalet för den kvantitativa undersökningen består av 15 företag. I den kvalitativa undersökningen, består urvalet av 5 företag. Metod: Undersökningen är uppdelad i två delar där två olika metoder användes. Dels en kvantitativ undersökning och en kvalitativ undersökning. En metodtriangulering genomfördes för att öka samstämmigheten i undersökningen. Information om de 15 företagen hämtades från olika typer av dokument, som årsredovisningar och pressmeddelanden. I den kvalitativa undersökningen genomfördes semistrukturerade intervjuer med olika nyckelpersoner på företagen.