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Competitors are firms competing in the same market, offering products that are similar, while targeting specific customers in order to gain a competitive advantage. In this assignment you will demonstrate your understanding of how to create and maintain a competitive advantage, answer the following questions:

What is market commonality?

What is resource similarity? What does it mean to say that these concepts are the building blocks for competitor analysis?

What factors affect the likelihood that a firm will take competitive action?

What factors affect the likelihood a firm will initiate a competitive response to the action taken by a competitor?

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Joshua Stredder
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28 Sep 2019

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Related questions

What valuable company is nobody building? This question is harder than it looks, because your company could create a lot of value without becoming very valuable itself. Creating value isn't enough -- you also need to capture some of the value you create. This means that even very big businesses can be bad businesses. For example, U.S. airline companies serve millions of passengers and create hundreds of billions of dollars of value each year. But in 2012, when the average airfare each way was $178, the airlines made only 37 cents per passenger trip. Compare them to Google, which creates less value but captures far more. Google brought in $50 billion in 2012 (versus $160 billion for the airlines), but it kept 21% of those revenues as profits -- more than 100 times the airline industry's profit margin that year. Google makes so much money that it is now worth three times more than every U.S. airline combined. The airlines compete with each other, but Google stands alone. Economists use two simplified models to explain the difference: perfect competition and monopoly. "Perfect competition" is considered both the ideal and the default state in Economics 101. So-called perfectly competitive markets achieve equilibrium when producer supply meets consumer demand. Every firm in a competitive market is undifferentiated and sells the same homogeneous products. Since no firm has any market power, they must all sell at whatever price the market determines. If there is money to be made, new firms will enter the market, increase supply, drive prices down and thereby eliminate the profits that attracted them in the first place. If too many firms enter the market, they'll suffer losses, some will fold, and prices will rise back to sustainable levels. Under perfect competition, in the long run no company makes an economic profit. The opposite of perfect competition is monopoly. Whereas a competitive firm must sell at the market price, a monopoly owns its market, so it can set its own prices. Since it has no competition, it produces at the quantity and price combination that maximizes its profits. To an economist, every monopoly looks the same, whether it deviously eliminates rivals, secures a license from the state or innovates its way to the top. I'm not interested in illegal bullies or government favorites: By "monopoly," I mean the kind of company that is so good at what it does that no other firm can offer a close substitute. Google is a good example of a company that went from 0 to 1: It hasn't competed in search since the early 2000s, when it definitively distanced itself from Microsoft and Yahoo! Americans mythologize competition and credit it with saving us from socialist bread lines. Actually, capitalism and competition are opposites. Capitalism is premised on the accumulation of capital, but under perfect competition, all profits get competed away. The lesson for entrepreneurs is clear: If you want to create and capture lasting value, don't build an undifferentiated commodity business. How much of the world is actually monopolistic? How much is truly competitive? It is hard to say because our common conversation about these matters is so confused. To the outside observer, all businesses can seem reasonably alike, so it is easy to perceive only small differences between them. But the reality is much more binary than that. There is an enormous difference between perfect competition and monopoly, and most businesses are much closer to one extreme than we commonly realize. The confusion comes from a universal bias for describing market conditions in self-serving ways: Both monopolists and competitors are incentivized to bend the truth. Monopolists lie to protect themselves. They know that bragging about their great monopoly invites being audited, scrutinized and attacked. Since they very much want their monopoly profits to continue unmolested, they tend to do whatever they can to conceal their monopoly -- usually by exaggerating the power of their (nonexistent) competition. Think about how Google talks about its business. It certainly doesn't claim to be a monopoly. But is it one? Well, it depends: a monopoly in what? Let's say that Google is primarily a search engine. As of May 2014, it owns about 68% of the search market. (Its closest competitors, Microsoft and Yahoo!, have about 19% and 10%, respectively.) If that doesn't seem dominant enough, consider the fact that the word "google" is now an official entry in the Oxford English Dictionary -- as a verb. Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen to Bing. But suppose we say that Google is primarily an advertising company. That changes things. The U.S. search-engine advertising market is $17 billion annually. Online advertising is $37 billion annually. The entire U.S. advertising market is $150 billion. And global advertising is a $495 billion market. So even if Google completely monopolized U.S. search-engine advertising, it would own just 3.4% of the global advertising market. From this angle, Google looks like a small player in a competitive world. What if we frame Google as a multifaceted technology company instead? This seems reasonable enough; in addition to its search engine, Google makes dozens of other software products, not to mention robotic cars, Android phones and wearable computers. But 95% of Google's revenue comes from search advertising; its other products generated just $2.35 billion in 2012 and its consumer-tech products a mere fraction of that. Since consumer tech is a $964 billion market globally, Google owns less than 0.24% of it -- a far cry from relevance, let alone monopoly. Framing itself as just another tech company allows Google to escape all sorts of unwanted attention. Non-monopolists tell the opposite lie: "We're in a league of our own." Entrepreneurs are always biased to understate the scale of competition, but that is the biggest mistake a startup can make. The fatal temptation is to describe your market extremely narrowly so that you dominate it by definition. Suppose you want to start a restaurant in Palo Alto that serves British food. "No one else is doing it," you might reason. "We'll own the entire market." But that is only true if the relevant market is the market for British food specifically. What if the actual market is the Palo Alto restaurant market in general? And what if all the restaurants in nearby towns are part of the relevant market as well? These are hard questions, but the bigger problem is that you have an incentive not to ask them at all. When you hear that most new restaurants fail within one or two years, your instinct will be to come up with a story about how yours is different. You'll spend time trying to convince people that you are exceptional instead of seriously considering whether that is true. It would be better to pause and consider whether there are people in Palo Alto who would rather eat British food above all else. They may well not exist. In 2001, my co-workers at PayPal and I would often get lunch on Castro Street in Mountain View, Calif. We had our pick of restaurants, starting with obvious categories like Indian, sushi and burgers. There were more options once we settled on a type: North Indian or South Indian, cheaper or fancier, and so on. In contrast to the competitive local restaurant market, PayPal was then the only email-based payments company in the world. We employed fewer people than the restaurants on Castro Street did, but our business was much more valuable than all those restaurants combined. Starting a new South Indian restaurant is a really hard way to make money. If you lose sight of competitive reality and focus on trivial differentiating factors -- maybe you think your naan is superior because of your great-grandmother's recipe -- your business is unlikely to survive. The problem with a competitive business goes beyond lack of profits. Imagine you're running one of those restaurants in Mountain View. You're not that different from dozens of your competitors, so you've got to fight hard to survive. If you offer affordable food with low margins, you can probably pay employees only minimum wage. And you'll need to squeeze out every efficiency: That is why small restaurants put Grandma to work at the register and make the kids wash dishes in the back. A monopoly like Google is different. Since it doesn't have to worry about competing with anyone, it has wider latitude to care about its workers, its products and its impact on the wider world. Google's motto -- "Don't be evil" -- is in part a branding ploy, but it is also characteristic of a kind of business that is successful enough to take ethics seriously without jeopardizing its own existence. In business, money is either an important thing or it is everything. Monopolists can afford to think about things other than making money; non-monopolists can't. In perfect competition, a business is so focused on today's margins that it can't possibly plan for a long-term future. Only one thing can allow a business to transcend the daily brute struggle for survival: monopoly profits. So a monopoly is good for everyone on the inside, but what about everyone on the outside? Do outsize profits come at the expense of the rest of society? Actually, yes: Profits come out of customers' wallets, and monopolies deserve their bad reputation -- but only in a world where nothing changes. In a static world, a monopolist is just a rent collector. If you corner the market for something, you can jack up the price; others will have no choice but to buy from you. Think of the famous board game: Deeds are shuffled around from player to player, but the board never changes. There is no way to win by inventing a better kind of real-estate development. The relative values of the properties are fixed for all time, so all you can do is try to buy them up. But the world we live in is dynamic: We can invent new and better things. Creative monopolists give customers more choices by adding entirely new categories of abundance to the world. Creative monopolies aren't just good for the rest of society; they're powerful engines for making it better. Even the government knows this: That is why one of its departments works hard to create monopolies (by granting patents to new inventions) even though another part hunts them down (by prosecuting antitrust cases). It is possible to question whether anyone should really be awarded a monopoly simply for having been the first to think of something like a mobile software design. But something like Apple's monopoly profits from designing, producing and marketing the iPhone were clearly the reward for creating greater abundance, not artificial scarcity: Customers were happy to finally have the choice of paying high prices to get a smartphone that actually works. The dynamism of new monopolies itself explains why old monopolies don't strangle innovation. With Apple's iOS at the forefront, the rise of mobile computing has dramatically reduced Microsoft's decadeslong operating system dominance. Before that, IBM's hardware monopoly of the 1960s and '70s was overtaken by Microsoft's software monopoly. AT&T had a monopoly on telephone service for most of the 20th century, but now anyone can get a cheap cellphone plan from any number of providers. If the tendency of monopoly businesses was to hold back progress, they would be dangerous, and we'd be right to oppose them. But the history of progress is a history of better monopoly businesses replacing incumbents. Monopolies drive progress because the promise of years or even decades of monopoly profits provides a powerful incentive to innovate. Then monopolies can keep innovating because profits enable them to make the long-term plans and finance the ambitious research projects that firms locked in competition can't dream of. So why are economists obsessed with competition as an ideal state? It is a relic of history. Economists copied their mathematics from the work of 19th-century physicists: They see individuals and businesses as interchangeable atoms, not as unique creators. Their theories describe an equilibrium state of perfect competition because that is what's easy to model, not because it represents the best of business. But the long-run equilibrium predicted by 19th-century physics was a state in which all energy is evenly distributed and everything comes to rest -- also known as the heat death of the universe. Whatever your views on thermodynamics, it is a powerful metaphor. In business, equilibrium means stasis, and stasis means death. If your industry is in a competitive equilibrium, the death of your business won't matter to the world; some other undifferentiated competitor will always be ready to take your place. Perfect equilibrium may describe the void that is most of the universe. It may even characterize many businesses. But every new creation takes place far from equilibrium. In the real world outside economic theory, every business is successful exactly to the extent that it does something others cannot. Monopoly is therefore not a pathology or an exception. Monopoly is the condition of every successful business. Tolstoy famously opens "Anna Karenina" by observing: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Business is the opposite. All happy companies are different: Each one earns a monopoly by solving a unique problem. All failed companies are the same: They failed to escape competition.

According to the article above by Peter Thiel do you think perfect competition is best for the economy and for consumers? Why or why not? What does Peter Thiel think about perfect competition versus monopolies?

The primary costs of FDI to host countries are:

Loss of sovereignty and patriotism

Adverse effects on competition and exports

Capital outflow

Loss of sovereignty, adverse effects on competition, and capital outflow

____ suggests that FDI, unrestricted by government intervention, will enable countries to tap into their absolute or comparative advantage by specializing in the production of certain goods or services.

The radical view

The free market view

Pragmatic nationalism

Expropriation

What are the benefits of FDI to home countries?

Repatriated earnings from profits from FDI.

Increased exports of components and services to host countries.

Learning via FDI from operations abroad.

All of these answers

When one firm enters a foreign country through FDI, its rivals are likely to follow by undertaking additional FDI in a host country to:

Create knowledge spillover

Discover a new market for its goods

Overcome and combat market failure through FDI

Acquire location advantages or neutralize the first mover’s location advantages

Most countries practice:

Pragmatic nationalism

Free market based FDI

Government embracing radical view

French patriotism

FDI may be viewed as a reflection of firm motivation to extend firm-specific capabilities abroad and their responses to overcome imperfections and failures.

True

False

Most countries practice a totally "free market" view.

True

False

8. Outsourcing is the process of turning over an organizational activity to an outside supplier, located in a foreign country, which will perform it on behalf of the local firm.

True

False

Financial, physical, and technological resources and capabilities are all tangible assets.

True

False

A firm's resources and capabilities are tangible assets a firm uses to choose and implement its strategies.

True

False

An example of low power distance would be when subordinates address their bosses on a first-name basis.

True

False

Benchmarking is an assessment as to whether a firm has resources and capabilities to perform a particular activity in a manner superior to competitors.

True

False

A country with low-masculinity has a more subtle differentiation between the gender roles.

True

False

Setting up subsidiaries abroad so the work can be performed in-house but in the foreign location is also called captive sourcing.

True

False

Managers in low uncertainty avoidance countries rely more on experience and training than managers in high uncertainty avoidance countries who rely more on rules.

True

False

Informal institutions include laws, regulations, and rules.

True

False

The United States is often classified as a collective society.

True

False

A pure market economy characterized by the "invisible hand" of market forces is noted by

John Stuart Mill

Adam Smith

Aristotle

Amatya Zen

Culture is defined in the text as:

The communication between members of similar location.

The collective programming of the mind, which distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another.

The main component of formal institutions.

The attitudes and behaviors characteristic of a particular social group or organization.

When an expat employee returns to her or his current employer but the employer does not provide attractive opportunities, she/he often may be hired by a competitor firm. Why?

Competitor firms are also interested in globalizing their business.

Former expats bring instant expertise and experience.

Competing firms will pay a higher premium for expertise.

All of these answers

The government taking a "hands-off approach" is known as:

Laissez faire

Command economy

Mixed economy

Liberal approach

Expatriate managers make ideal candidates for top management positions.

True

False

____ are defined as rights associated with the ownership of intellectual property.

Patents

Copyrights

Trademarks

Intellectual property rights

In a collective society:

Family units are highly valued.

Being an entrepreneur is a popular mindset

Being different than your neighbor is important.

Outsiders are easily trusted.

Which of the following definitions best defines an expatriate manager?

A manager who works outside his or her native country

A manager of great expertise

An ex-manager rehired for advisory purposes

None of these answers

Objectives:

Ý· Learn how individuals contribute to teamwork

Ý· Experience some of the features of group work and teamwork

Ý· Understand what managers and organizational developers do to transform

Ý· groups into teams

Ý· Articulate the tangible benefits (both quantitative and qualitative) of

Ý· high-performing teams

Ý· Finish with an interest in learning more about these concepts and

Ý· techniques to apply what you learn

Background: For this assignment, you will plan and play a game with your family or friends, or at work based on the idea of the classic prisoner's dilemma. If you have had a class on game theory, you will be well aware of this concept. It forms the basis of many TV game shows. The prisoner's dilemma was illustrated in Truman Capote's book, "In Cold Blood" concerning the 1959 robbery of a Kansas farmhouse by Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, who murdered their victims in order to eliminate the witnesses. After the men were captured, the police interrogated them separately. To get a confession, the police offered the men a reduced sentence for cooperating. Failure to cooperate would result in a death penalty charge for both.

In the prisoner's dilemma, if both parties cooperate they are mildly punished; if one betrays another, one is severely punished while the other goes free; and if both betray one-another, both are moderately punished. Can you think of settings where you work in which the organizational structure has created a prisoner's dilemma? Competition can (but does not necessarily) bring out conflict.

In game theory, there are non-cooperative and cooperative games. A non-cooperative zero-sum game has a definite winner and loser. For one to win, one must lose. We often think of politicking as an element of that. A cooperative game is where everyone who plays is better off for having played than not having played the game. That is not to say that everyone is equally well off, but simply better off than they were before playing. Hence, even in a cooperative game, some people will likely benefit more than others.

Instructions

  • Review in your textbook, the Big Five personality dimensions, pp. 82�84, and then consider the 3.1 Personality Insights inventory, pp. 89�91
  • Select four or five friends, coworkers, or family members and have them take the personality inventory
  • Plan and play a game with the participants
  • Write a 5-10 page paper that addresses the assignment questions below


As you plan and play your game, you will negotiate the type of game you want to play and your role in it. Strive to determine some personal characteristics of the game participants a head of time, or by observing them. Consider how the personal characteristics of the individuals in the game manifest themselves in the informal roles they assume during the planning and execution of the game.

For the purpose of this assignment, you will want both a cooperative and a competitive element. To do that, you can form several groups to compete and cooperate with each other, or you can have individuals in one group compete and cooperate. You can use rewards and/or punishments to create the competitive/cooperative motivations.



Evaluation: When groups are formed, we want to consider how organizational structures, processes, and situations impact on group motivation, politics, and goals achievement. Alignment of all of these structural, personal, and interpersonal components will help to ensure that the group will meld into a team. A defining feature of teamwork (versus group work) is cooperation!

One of the factors that affect cooperation is conflict. Conflict is defined as when someone perceives that his/her interests are opposed or negatively impacted by another. Conflict can at times produce positive results depending on the basis for the conflict and how the conflict is handled (functional conflict). The worst kind of dysfunctional conflict produces betrayal.

Note that team performance can be observed in how well the team coordinates their interdependencies, works efficiently, communicates, and accomplishes their mission. Consequently, as you implement your game, assess your players based on these factors and the informal roles they play.

After you have played the game, reflect on the personality assessments your participants took, and then consider how they planned and played the game.

Write a (5- 10) page analysis to address the following questions:

1. How well did the personality assessments reflect in the behaviors participants displayed during the game?

2. What do these assessments tell us about how we perceive ourselves versus how others perceive us?

3. What informal roles did participants assume during the game, and were they different from the planning portion from the playing portion of the exercise?

4. What did I learn about myself? For example, did the exercise show that you have characteristic ways of relating to others that are distinctive, or similar, to those the others? Did the exercise show that in a particular type of situation you acted in a particular way, or that when others acted in a particular way, you felt happy or anxious or angry, etc.?

5. What did I learn about someone else in the exercise? Did you see something new about them, such as "they seemed more capable than I imagined," or "inattentive when things were stressful?"

6. In playing your game, what could you have done to increase cooperative behaviors?

7. Based on your game experience, what are some of the key factors involved in gaining cooperation from people in a business setting?


8. How would you go about getting cooperation from a "difficult" co-worker? Give an example or scenario.



Please provide a unique type of game theory preferably instead of Mafia Game.


Text:

Organizational Behavior and Management 10th Edition

John Ivancevich, Robert Konopaske, Michael Matteson



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