| Empirical and anecdotal evidences have shown that both first and late movers could achieve competitive advantage in the market, and studies on the effect of entry order and entry timing on firm performance thus far are yet to provide us with a clear depiction of the entry order or timing-entry advantage-performance relationship. No study has delineated detailed mechanisms that are conducive to firms' achieving first-mover advantage in some product categories, late mover advantages in some other product categories, and no advantages in still other. Drawing upon resource-based view of organizational theory, extended product life cycle conceptualization, and first mover advantage and timing of entry literature from marketing, OB, and management, this study proposes an integrated framework of entry order and timing, entry time momentum, and marketing strategy in an attempt to reconcile those inconsistent findings around this topic. Instead of examining advantages and disadvantages associated with market entry in isolation, “entry time momentum” is introduced in this study to capture the net, differential advantages accompanying firm's timing and order of entry. Serving as a mediator between individual advantages and disadvantages associated with entry, entry time momentum is postulated as a key determinant of product-market performance of the firm, instead of the commonly perceived factors of entry-order or entry timing. Entry timing is aligned with refined stages of product life cycle to explicate that first mover advantages could be sustained or lost depending upon the level of entry time momentum and the effectiveness of subsequent marketing strategy; and on the other hand, it is illustrated that late mover advantages could also be gained and late movers could indeed surpass first-movers in attaining late-mover advantage. With this integrated framework, both first and late entry scenarios and all the possible entries in between could all be satisfactorily explained. The proposed framework is empirically tested with data collected from 241 marketing executives. Analysis results, conclusions, implications, and future research are presented. |
