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Despite the benefits associated with interorganizational collaborations, they often fail to meet partnering firms' expectations. A common issue is competitive tension between partners. Yet, competitive tension is a well-known issue in collaboration, such that partners should be able to set expectations and manage it accordingly. Why, then, does competitive tension often derail collaborations? We suggest that whether partners perceive each other as competitors is a key but understudied aspect of how competition shapes collaboration. We hypothesize that misaligned perception —one firm perceiving the other as a competitor but not vice versa—leads to misplaced expectations about partner behavior and collaboration performance and subsequent failure to meet those expectations. We test our theory in the U.S. software industry and find that collaborations characterized by misaligned perception are less likely to be renewed, even after controlling for partner quality and market overlap (i.e., objective competitive tension). Our examination of the social structure surrounding collaborations illustrates how the perceptions of third parties can moderate the effect of misaligned perception. We examine mechanisms and find that misalignment is linked to litigation between partners and lower collaboration performance. We contribute to the literatures on interfirm collaboration and on perception in social networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study extends competitive dynamics research by theorizing how and when information about a firm may be shaped by competitive forces operating through information intermediaries. Arguing that ownership bestows investors with influence over information intermediaries from which investors can profit, we suggest that firms receive less favorable ratings from rating agencies in which their rivals’ investors have greater ownership. Building on research in this vein, we develop a dynamic theory of information-based competition that suggests the rating discounts a firm receives from rating agencies owned by its rivals’ investors are shaped by the reputational threats and opportunities faced by the firm and its rivals, which motivate and enable investors to use information intermediaries to intervene in competitive dynamics. Analyses of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ratings of 2,787 firms by a leading ESG rating agency support these ideas. Our study introduces the concept of information-based competition and illuminates the conditions under which investors engage in information-based competitive attacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the government-driven mergers of large banks, many competing firms in Japan ended up borrowing from a common lender. Using firm-level data, we find that the capital investments of competing firms that share a common lender decrease by 15% of the mean. When a common lender can exercise its voice through its former employees serving as firms' executive directors, investments fall significantly further. Competing firms that share a common lender increase markups and profitability ratios, suggesting that the lender induces strategic coordination among its borrowers to reduce their competitive pressures. Firms use saved resources from weaker competition for cash cushions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regulators across the globe have imposed penalties on consumers for digital piracy consumption. Contrary to expectations, however, digital piracy consumption has continued to grow. The authors develop a simple model of competition between a copyright holder and a pirate firm to offer a plausible account for this observation as well as actionable guidelines for optimal regulation design. The core of this idea is to endogenize the pirate firm's strategic investment in antitracking technologies that help consumers evade a regulator's penalty. The authors find that as the penalty rises, piracy consumption can surprisingly increase after decreasing first; relatedly, the copyright holder and the society may suffer from tighter regulation. Depending on the cost of antitracking technologies of the pirate firm, the regulator optimally sets the penalty to operate in two different regimes. When the technology is available at a low cost, the regulator can achieve the goals of maximizing social welfare and minimizing piracy consumption simultaneously by setting a moderate penalty that maximizes consumers' expected penalty and tolerates some level of piracy consumption. In contrast, when the technology is costly, the regulator should set a relatively high penalty to completely impede piracy supply. Additionally, the authors show that supply-side regulation does not substitute away demand-side regulation, and educating consumers about copyright protection may unintentionally lead to an increase in piracy consumption. Last, the authors identify complex nonmonotonic long-run effects of piracy consumption regulation on the copyright holder's incentives for content creation and copyright protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brands often make references to competitors in their public communications. Yet not all competitors are equal—over time, certain pairs of brands may develop special rivalry relationships. This research examines whether these relationships can alter the effects of interbrand communications. Drawing on rivalry theory, the authors distinguish between brand rivalry, a special competitive relationship between brands based on a shared history, and competition, a situation where brands merely have currently opposing goals. A series of studies using complementary methods (two archival studies using large-scale Twitter data and three preregistered experiments) provide evidence for the "rivalry reference effect" across multiple brands and product categories. That is, referencing a rival (vs. a nonrival) competitor in a public brand message increases consumer engagement. The effect is mediated by increased story embeddedness, defined as the perception that the reference is embedded within an ongoing story. The authors also show positive downstream effects on purchase intentions and test two moderators: brand preference (loyal vs. neutral consumers) and message valence (negative vs. positive). This research highlights the potential appeal of brand rivalry to consumers, illustrating how and under what conditions brands can use their rivalries to their advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marketers often assume that consumers comparing products (e.g., two TVs) will show a hedonic contrast. In other words, a product seems more appealing and consumers are willing to pay more for it when it is compared with an unappealing competitor than when it is compared with a highly appealing one. However, hedonic judgments (e.g., how appealing is this TV?) are confounded with underlying attribute judgments (e.g., how big is this TV?), and it is important to delineate their effects. This article presents six studies to disentangle them and shows evidence for two separate effects in opposite directions: while a product's attribute judgments contrast with those of a competitor, its hedonic judgments assimilate. Thus, marketing tactics based on the assumption of the hedonic contrast hypothesis can potentially backfire, reducing willingness to pay. More generally, this research reveals the hidden complexity underlying product comparisons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relative performance evaluation (RPE) intensifies competitive pressure by tying executive compensation to the profits of rivals. We show that these contracts make loan syndication harder by reducing banks' willingness to participate in loans underwritten by banks named in their RPE contracts. Lead arranger banks, which are more frequently named in RPE, hold larger shares of the loans they syndicate, and their borrowers receive smaller and fewer loans and face higher spreads. Our results highlight the tension between the normal benefits of competition versus the need for cooperation in loan syndication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We show that bank competition diminishes banks' incentives to produce information about prospective borrowers. We exploit the deregulation of U.S. interstate branching as a shock to competition and use borrowers' stock returns after loan announcements to measure bank information production. Positive loan announcement returns are reduced in states that deregulate interstate branching, especially for opaque and bank-dependent firms and smaller banks that rely on soft information. Existing (i.e., inside) banks reduce information production more than new (i.e., outside) banks after deregulation, suggesting that they do so to deter borrower poaching. Furthermore, the probability of a covenant violation increases following deregulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are women more likely to shy away from competitive and uncertain environments when considering information technology (IT)-related work options, relative to men? Does gender play a role in the propensity to participate in the marketplace for competitive and uncertain work? The response to this has implications for understanding the participation rate of women within the IT sector, as well as for setting policy aimed at increasing the number of women in the IT industry. Addressing this question using data from organizations is difficult, given the presence of organizational and institutional confounds. In this paper, we investigate this research question through a series of lab experiments using three sets of suitable subjects: graduate students in Information Systems and Business Analytics programs, MTurk, and Prolific respondents with IT backgrounds. Using the experimental context of a competitive online labor market, we study how competition and wage uncertainty affect the decision to bid for a project as well as the wage expectations across gender. Our results across three studies show that (a) women are more likely to bid for projects with higher coordination needs: navigating, communicating across, and managing multiple domains, technological, functional, and geographical boundaries; and (b) women are also more likely to bid when there is higher competition. Our work contributes to a deeper understanding of the role of gender, competitiveness, and uncertainty within the IT industry, and informs managers and policymakers regarding the intrinsic preferences of early-stage IT professionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tournament literature has typically traced employees' competitive actions to characteristics of individual-level career tournaments. Yet, such individual-level tournaments usually transcend firms that themselves compete in a firm-level tournament. We study the cross-level implications of a firm-level tournament for the competitive actions that constituent employees undertake against other individuals internal and external to their firm. We propose a theory of individual reputational incentives, which predicts that a firm's competitive threats decrease its employees' internal competitive actions yet increase their external competitive actions, while a firm's competitive opportunities increase employees' internal and external competitive actions. The theory also predicts that these effects are largest when a firm faces potential unexpected losses or gains in its standing, such as when the firm experiences competitive threats from resource-disadvantaged firms, or competitive opportunities against resource-advantaged firms. In panel data on the population of motorcycle riders competing in MotoGP from 2004 to 2020, we examine these hypotheses using overtakes to measure riders' internal and external competitive actions. Our findings reveal how riders adjust their internal and external overtakes based on their team's competitive threats and opportunities, and on the relative resource endowments of the teams supplying such threats or opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop and test theory regarding the effect of CEO paranoia, defined as stable tendencies toward suspicion, feelings of ill will or resentment, mistrust, and belief in external control or influence, on firm stakeholder engagement. We theorize that because CEOs higher in paranoia have tendencies toward hypervigilance and the biases of self-as-target and sinister attributions they typically avoid engagement with external stakeholders. Further, we argue that CEOs higher in paranoia are subject to paranoid activation when confronted with trait-relevant cues that confirm suspicions of being targeted by a malevolent external entity (here, regulatory rulings or rival attacks), thus eliciting a shift away from avoidance to a more aggressive engagement with those stakeholders. To do so, we develop a content-analytic measure of CEO paranoia following both theory and evidence in psychology and methodological best practices, finding evidence that broadly supports our premise. In total, our study draws attention to how the manifestation of CEO paranoia changes the way CEOs engage stakeholders over time, contributing to understanding in multiple ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies how the rise of financial technology (Fintech) lending affects credit access, interest rates, and social welfare. We consider a lending competition model with two incumbent banks and a Fintech lender, which use different information and technologies to assess borrower creditworthiness. We show that Fintech lending could negatively affect high-quality borrowers' access to credit when the Fintech lender's screening accuracy is superior to that of the banks. Furthermore, Fintech lending may worsen the allocative efficiency of credit and reduce social welfare under some conditions. Analytical and numerical results suggest that Fintech lending mostly reduces the expected interest rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies how industry peers' stock prices respond when another firm in the industry is acquired by a foreign firm. The average stock price reactions of industry peers in horizontal foreign acquisitions around deal announcements are significantly negative. Peers' returns are more negative in growing, less specialized, and competitive industries. Moreover, the negative stock price reactions of industry peers are related to future decreases in their operating performance. Overall, these results suggest that foreign acquisitions have strong competitive effects for the industry peers of U.S. target companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Competitors may perceive a focal firm's CEO succession as creating an exploitable opportunity as well as a future threat to preempt. Drawing from theories of executive human and social capital, we suggest that anticipation of internal disruption stemming from human and social capital changes in a CEO succession may lead to external disruption for the focal firm. In our sample of S&P 500 firms between 2010 and 2018, we find that competitors are more likely to attack the focal firm when the successor's professional experience differs drastically from that of the predecessor and less likely to do so when the successor is an insider. We also find that competitors' attacks following a succession event can be minimized by limiting changes to only one form of capital (i.e., human or social). Moreover, retaining the predecessor as board chair after the succession could be an effective human capital preservation strategy for reducing competitors' attacks when the difference in professional experience between the predecessor and successor is high. However, retaining the predecessor as board chair may not have the same effect when it comes to social capital. Our research highlights the competitive implications of CEO succession, offering new insight into disruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors examine the effects of a firm's and its competitors' online reviews on its demand within the hotel industry. The authors leverage a unique data set of actual bookings from properties of a major hotel chain in six different markets in the United States, supplemented with online reviews garnered from a popular social media platform. The findings indicate that not only a hotel's own reviews but also its competitors' reviews have a significant impact on the hotel's booking performance. The impact of review sentiment is amplified if the focal hotel also charges higher prices or when the volume of reviews is high. The authors establish heterogeneous effects across consumer segments (business vs. leisure travelers) and by the type of review content (objective vs. subjective attributes to assess quality). Specifically, both a hotel's own reviews and its competitors' reviews have a larger impact on bookings for business travelers compared with leisure travelers, and for reviews that mainly discuss subjective attributes, for which consumers need to rely on the experiences of others to assess the quality of a hotel prior to their stay. The study provides a set of comprehensive insights on the impact of both own and competitors' online reviews on a focal hotel's bookings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the liability of foreignness has been shown to present real economic barriers for foreign firms in various contexts around the globe, scholars continue to debate what drives this liability in different market contexts: lack of information due to institutional distance, lack of social embeddedness, discrimination, or something else. In this study, we propose a new theory, that in corporate lobbying within the nonmarket strategy context, the liability of foreignness is driven in no small part by a values-based ideological conflict stemming from the divide between democracy and autocracy. Private-sector firms from autocratic countries face costs of illegitimacy in Washington, D.C., and professional corporate lobbyists charge such firms a fee premium, in effect, to pay for legitimacy. We conduct an empirical study of the lobbying fees charged by professional corporate lobbyists in Washington, D.C., to their domestic and foreign firm clients, and the results strongly support the predictions of our theory. We also show that the liability of foreignness in this context endures for foreign firms from autocratic countries over the 15-year length of our sample period. Offering a new theoretical perspective as well as new empirical findings regarding the liability of foreignness, our study has practical implications for managers of foreign firms and may also generalize to other market contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The large divergence in the returns of top-performing star firms and the rest of the economy is substantially reduced when we account for the mismeasurement of intangible capital. Star firms produce and invest more per dollar in invested capital, have more valuable innovations as measured by the market value of patents, and are as exposed to competitive shocks as nonstars. Star firms have higher markups that are predicted early in their life cycle at a time when they are small. Overall, after we correct for the mismeasurement of intangibles, the evidence points to the superior ability of star firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We test the signaling view of corporate social responsibility (CSR) engagement using two complementary quasi-natural experiments that impose exogenous negative pressure on stock prices. Firms under such adverse price pressure increase CSR activities compared to otherwise similar firms. This effect concentrates among firms with stronger signaling incentives, namely, those facing greater information asymmetry, more product market competition, higher shareholder litigation risk, and higher stock price crash risk. Firms under the exogenous negative price pressure mainly improve CSR strengths, including costly environmental investments. We also find that CSR engagement attracts socially responsible investors and lowers the cost of capital for signaling firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By employing a dynamic model with two limit order books, we show that fragmentation is associated with reduced competition among liquidity suppliers and lower picking-off risk of limit orders. Due to these countervailing channels, the impact of fragmentation on liquidity and welfare differs with asset volatility: When volatility is high (low), liquidity and aggregate welfare in a fragmented market are higher (lower) than in a single market. However, fragmentation always shifts welfare away from agents with exogenous trading motives and toward intermediaries. We empirically corroborate our model's predictions about liquidity. Our model reconciles the mixed results in the empirical literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how labor mobility restrictions like noncompete agreements affect firms' investment decisions. Using matched employee-employer data from LinkedIn, I show that increases in the enforceability of noncompete agreements lead to widespread declines in employee departures, specifically in knowledge-intensive occupations. Established firms that rely more on these knowledge-intensive occupations increase their investment rate in physical capital. However, new firm entry in corresponding sectors declines. I provide evidence for different mechanisms to explain these patterns. Together, the findings show that labor frictions play an important role in investment decisions. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix , which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a psycho-cultural framework for analysing US-China relations in the context of the great power competition, explaining the escalation of their rivalry and the proliferation of conflict. It emphasises the critical role of self-esteem and culture in shaping domestic and international dynamics, focusing on the interplay between honour and face as distinct expressions of self-esteem in US and Chinese societies. The study illustrates how pursuing national self-esteem drives confrontational interactions between these two powers, with the 2018–2020 US-China trade war as a prime example. Here, nationalist narratives were crafted to evoke emotional resonance with domestic audiences, intensifying the conflict beyond mere economic competition into a struggle for national self-esteem. The rise of identity politics in both countries has further exacerbated tensions, as perceived disrespect has triggered coercive responses, worsening bilateral relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This systematic review aims to examine empirical literature about advancing the social role of college-based higher education (CBHE). A thematic analysis of empirical evidence from the 58 included articles offers insights into the social role of CBHE, and the characteristics of CBHE colleges, students, and lecturers. The review indicated a growing research interest in CBHE and an increase in the geographical spread of such research as the provision has grown. It also highlighted the social role of CBHE including (i) widening higher education participation, (ii) responding to local employment needs for work-ready graduates and community development, and (iii) supporting social justice. Although there are differences in the organisation of CBHE across education systems, the review underscored the overwhelming agreement that the CBHE provision is designed to respond to two policy concerns. These are policies to increase economic competitiveness and productivity by providing learning that is industry aligned and cost effective, and policies to promote social justice and equity by providing supportive learning environments for a distinct group of students who otherwise would not access higher education. The review calls for vigilant policy to sustain the double role of CBHE and to avoid the prioritisation of education for the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we discuss the findings of a diagnostic study of (foreign and native) language use in the department of Antioquia, in the Northwest region of Colombia; we specifically focus on the findings pertaining to the largest urban area of the department, Medellín, along with its metropolis. We discuss how the current development agenda, centered around turning the city into a technological and business hub, intertwined with a bilingualism program, poses challenges to language education. In addition, we discuss how city development plans that have an effect on education are influenced by neoliberal discourses centered on ideas of economic development and competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the development of China's sanctions legislation in an era of strategic competition. Beijing's new sanctions regime is informed by its experience as a sanctionee, with much of the new legislation almost directly mirrored on sanctions enacted against China by the West. The article seeks to account for Beijing's interest in pursuing a formalised approach, employing four explanatory 'models', namely national security threats; retaliatory economic competition; status-seeking and prestige; and domestic constituents. The article argues that, despite China creating a new legislative framework, Beijing will continue to implement informal tactics for the most part, while employing formal measures in a targeted and measured way. Ultimately this two-pronged approach delivers a highly effective and adaptable toolkit of statecraft for China as an ascending power. However, there are normative implications for the orderly conduct of global trade and political cooperation as more states enter a great sanctions race. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Silk and silk products have become one of the world's most vital traded commodities and China is the world's largest producer and exporter of silk products. This study uses statistical data on silk products trade of twenty-nine countries, who are main partners of China's silk trade. The data are mainly from the UN Comtrade database for the years 2002–2022. Utilizing the Constant Market Share (CMS) model, it analyzes the current status of China's silk product export trade. The study decomposes the factors influencing the export growth of silk products between China and other countries. The results indicate that from 2002 to 2022, China's export growth of silk products to other countries was mainly driven by increased export competitiveness. Specifically, silk and satin products and natural silk products have strong export competitiveness, while secondary silk products constrain export growth. In comparison, the dominant factor driving other countries' silk products export to China was the increasing demand in the Chinese market. Market fluctuations caused by the economic crisis and the epidemic have had an impact on the export value of natural silk products and silk and satin products, while secondary silk products, which have the highest value-added, have shown strong competitiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]