The Red Queen among Organizations


Book Description

There's a scene in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass in which the Red Queen, having just led a chase with Alice in which neither seems to have moved from the spot where they began, explains to the perplexed girl: "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place." Evolutionary biologists have used this scene to illustrate the evolutionary arms race among competing species. William Barnett argues that a similar dynamic is at work when organizations compete, shaping how firms and industries evolve over time. Barnett examines the effects--and unforeseen perils--of competing and winning. He takes a fascinating, in-depth look at two of the most competitive industries--computer manufacturing and commercial banking--and derives some startling conclusions. Organizations that survive competition become stronger competitors--but only in the market contexts in which they succeed. Barnett shows how managers may think their experience will help them thrive in new markets and conditions, when in fact the opposite is likely to be the case. He finds that an organization's competitiveness at any given moment hinges on the organization's historical experience. Through Red Queen competition, weaker competitors fail, or they learn and adapt. This in turn heightens the intensity of competition and further strengthens survivors in an ever-evolving dynamic. Written by a leading organizational theorist, The Red Queen among Organizations challenges the prevailing wisdom about competition, revealing it to be a force that can make--and break--even the most successful organization.







Trumping the Red Queen


Book Description

Why has the United States struggle to keep up with the rest of the world been so difficult, and why have so many financial calamities originated in the US? Trumping the Red Queen answers these questions as it unravels the mysteries behind creativity and learning. The reader is taken on a journey down into the Rabbit Hole of innovation. The journey reveals, in layman's terms, why so many of the ideals behind mass production and consumption perform so poorly today and why most people in the US are working at a disadvantage. The book's adventure into the Wonderland of creativity explains why small, highly-focused groups can routinely succeed in places where larger organizations flounder. It also explains why so many overseas graduates outperform the US in math and science. The trump card, a unique form of learning called Hyperstruction, is explained in ways that parents, educators and those in business can use it to regain the vitality that once was a unique trademark of the United States. Trumping the Red Queen looks at creativity from within the Rabbit Hole to shed new light on an old subject, cast a fresh perspective, and expose a unique way to survive in today's colossal economy without running everyone into the ground.




Choice


Book Description




The Red Queen Retail Race


Book Description

The Red Queen Retail Race: An Innovation Pandemic in the Era of Digitization, considers how innovation through technological change has been transforming the retail sector in different markets, and how such change has been accelerated through the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. The book is inspired by Alice's encounters of the Red Queen's race in the classic novel Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll (1871), where 'it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place'. This metaphor is illustrative for the service sector that is in a transition from 'a slow world' towards a Red Queen race, where running faster is not enough by itself. It is changing how a consumer society operates, replacing investment in the physical confines of products, stores, and geographical areas, with investment in the apparently unbounded digital universe of information, relationships, and social networks. Online and mobile services enable new entrants to bypass investments in fixed assets and avoid regulatory issues by employing new business models. By leveraging such advantages, technologically-driven international competition has created substantial challenges for established retailers and service providers in domestic markets across the globe. The result is a reconsideration of the role of place in a digital world.







Strategy & Business


Book Description




2010


Book Description




Competitive Actions of New Technology Firms


Book Description

The competitive strategy used by a new firm may be the most important strategy it ever employs (Covin & Slevin, 1989; Ferrier, 2001). A well-chosen and executed firm strategy is essential for a firm to realize its potential competitive advantage (Porter, 1981). A firm's strategic intent and resulting competitive actions are especially important when firms are new and vulnerable as they strive to learn which strategic actions help them adapt to their rivals actions and to their environment (Stinchcombe, 1965). Further, the competitive actions that new firms choose to take with rival firms affects the overall competitive dynamics of their industry (Smith, Ferrier, and Ndofor, 2001). One way to explore how the competitive actions of new firms affect their future is to capture and examine their individual competitive moves and countermoves over time (Smith, Grimm, Gannon, & Chen, 1991). Red Queen competition is a particular form of competitive dynamics that is well-suited to explore these issues of new rival firms (Barnett, 2008). Barnett and Sorenson (2002) suggested that competition and learning reinforce one another as organizations develop, and this is what van Valen (1973) referred to as the 'Red Queen.' This definition of the Red Queen led to the development of the concept of Red Queen competition and the Red Queen effect. The competitive strategies these new firms use to obtain resources as they adapt, in particular how these firms compete and or cooperate, are key competitive strategies that remain understudied to-date (Amit, Glosten, and Muller, 1990). I explore Red Queen competition, and the ensuing Red Queen Effect, in a complex environmental setting that represents a high technology ecosystem (Arned, 1996, 2010; Iansiti & Levien, 2004a, 2004b; Moore, 1993; Pierce, 2009). New firms in such an ecosystem represent a particularly salient combination of type of firm, firm lifecycle period, and firm environment to examine strategic actions since these firms comprise a significant portion of the high-growth and future of our global economy (Stangler, 2010). Further, due to their need to rapidly adapt in a complex ecosystem, these firms rely heavily on short-lived information resources for competitive advantage (Barney, 1991; Nelson and Winter, 1982; Omerzel, 2008). To place this research in context, I consider the moderating effects of key environmental ecosystem resource conditions (Dess & Beard, 1984; Miller & Friesen, 1983; Sharfman & Dean, 1991). Empirical studies to-date have yielded mixed results and left unanswered questions about the basic components and the effects of Red Queen competition. To address these issues I explore this literature in chapter one of the dissertation, and in chapter two I develop a theoretical model of Red Queen competition that draws on the available empirical and theoretical literature to-date. Due to the mixed finding from the empirical results, I develop a precise agent-based simulation model of Red Queen competition in chapter three to facilitate data collection. Using this data I test a series of hypotheses designed to explore the fundamentals of Red Queen competition, specifically how escalating competitive activity for resources among new firms impacts their survival and performance. In addition, the moderating effect of environmental changes on Red Queen competition is also tested to explore the affect of context on Red Queen competition. Chapter four explains the findings from these hypotheses, future research directions, implications and limitations from the research, and my concluding thoughts.




Science & Public Policy


Book Description