This book represents the findings of the first-ever major investigation into the ways in which individual and group perceptions of competition impact the development of strategy at individual, group and industry levels of analysis. It is based on a study undertaken in the residential estate agency industry, during a period of rapid change and instability and draws extensively on one of the largest and most sophisticated data sets ever gathered in this field to date. The book will be of interest to researchers and advanced students in the field of strategic management, organizational theory and behavior, organizational psychology and marketing.
Author(s): Gerard Hodgkinson
Year: 2005
Language: English
Pages: 320
Cover......Page 1
Contents......Page 8
List of Figures......Page 12
List of Tables......Page 13
Foreword......Page 18
Preface......Page 20
Publisher Acknowledgements......Page 26
1 Introduction......Page 28
Research agenda and key themes......Page 29
Methodological approach......Page 32
Structure of the book......Page 34
2 The Cognitive Analysis of Competition in Industries and Markets......Page 35
Background to the development of cognitive approaches for the analysis of competitive structures......Page 36
Competitor categorization processes......Page 38
The social construction of competitive groups......Page 43
The situated learning perspective......Page 47
Empirical studies of competitive enactment and related conceptions: A review and critique......Page 48
The limitations of small-scale exploratory and larger-scale cross-sectional studies......Page 50
The limitations of extant longitudinal studies......Page 51
The limitations of single informant, multiple organization designs......Page 54
The case for studying individual and subgroup similarities and differences in mental models of competitor definition......Page 56
Studies of the nature and extent of individual and subgroup variations and homogeneity in mental models of competitor definition......Page 58
Towards fusion: Exploring the relative impact of task and institutional influences on actors' mental models of competitive industry structures......Page 61
Methodological Issues in the analysis of competitor cognition......Page 62
The elicitation of maps......Page 63
The comparison of maps......Page 66
The validation of maps......Page 67
Towards a constructive alternative......Page 69
Research agenda......Page 70
3 The Research Context......Page 72
The UK residential estate agency industry......Page 73
The entrance of national financial institutions......Page 76
Estate agency co-operatives......Page 80
Changes in the housing market......Page 81
Operating practices......Page 84
Other developments......Page 85
Relevance of the industry to the research objectives......Page 86
Conclusion......Page 89
The competitor analysis questionnaire (CAQ)......Page 90
The strategic locus of control scale......Page 94
Strategy making behaviour, organizational structure and environment......Page 96
Organizational size......Page 97
Organizational performance......Page 98
Environmental scanning......Page 99
Sampling and data collection procedures......Page 100
Data reduction......Page 103
Organizational-level analyses......Page 107
Comparison of returners and non-returners......Page 114
Summary and conclusions......Page 118
Assessing actors' mental models of competitive space......Page 119
Three-way scaling for the assessment of mental models......Page 120
Basic analytical strategy......Page 123
Multidimensional scaling analysis......Page 124
The industry-level mental model......Page 125
Validation of the CAQ......Page 129
Summary and conclusions......Page 139
6 Homogeneity and Diversity......Page 141
Inter-organizational subgroup comparisons......Page 143
Comparison of the dimension weights......Page 144
North East Midlands Estates: An exception to the norm?......Page 145
Comparison of the group space configurations......Page 148
Functional subgroup comparisons......Page 155
Summary and conclusions......Page 157
7 Longitudinal Stability......Page 159
Longitudinal comparison of market conditions and strategic behaviours......Page 160
Longitudinal comparison of the participant source weight ratios......Page 164
Comparison of the group space configurations......Page 165
Summary and conclusions......Page 168
8 Conclusions and Implications......Page 170
Implications for theory......Page 172
Competitive enactment and related conceptions......Page 173
Industry recipes and cognitive inertia......Page 175
Mental models of competitive space, strategy and performance......Page 176
Wider theoretical implications......Page 177
Research design and analysis......Page 179
Contextual embeddedness......Page 180
Sampling characteristics......Page 182
Advances in cognitive modelling......Page 183
Survey feedback for fostering organizational development......Page 186
Scenario planning for fostering competitive foresight......Page 187
Comparison with strategic groups analysis......Page 189
Strategic locus of control......Page 190
Limitations......Page 191
Implications for future research......Page 192
Conclusion......Page 195
Appendix 1 Development and Validation of the Strategic Locus of Control Scale......Page 196
Appendix 2 MDS Solutions for the Various Organizational Subgroups......Page 200
Appendix 3 MDS Solutions for the Various Functional Subgroups......Page 209
Appendix 4 MDS Solutions for the Longitudinal Comparisons......Page 217
References......Page 221
C......Page 237
H......Page 239
M......Page 240
P......Page 242
S......Page 243
W......Page 244
Z......Page 245
