The Innovator's "Imitation":Research On The Mechanism Of Responsive Knowledge Search In Incumbent Enterprises

Since Professor Christensen put forward the theoretical issue of "the innovator's dilemma",many scholars have begun to pay attention to how the incumbent companies should deal with the theory of new entrants in the market to prevent subversion.However,most of the previous studies on incumbent companies focused on their competitive disadvantages in the face of "innovators' dilemma".The current research lacks an examination of the strategic initiative of incumbents.While the existing research indicates the incumbent external knowledge can be absorbed to overcome organizational inertia,but it is not enough to pay attention to how the incumbent should learn and who to learn.This paper focuses on this theoretical gap,firstly summarizes the characteristics and patterns of reactive knowledge search in incumbent enterprises through exploratory case studies,and selects three typical cases based on theoretical sampling to conduct multi-case comparative research,namely Huawei and Lenovo for the study of Xiaomi Internet mobile phone,the Midea group to learn the production of Soymilk machine in Jiuyang,and Taobao and Jingdong to learn from Pinduoduo to carry out "team purchase" shopping model,which can fully explain how incumbent companies can use reactive knowledge search strategies to continue to maintain market leadership.Based on the comparative analysis of multiple cases in exploratory cases,the research initially explores and establishes the dynamic process of incumbent enterprises to deal with the competition of new entrants,and then constructs the reactive knowledge of incumbents from the perspective of incumbents.The theoretical model of the search depicts the dynamic process of the knowledge search and the specific performance impact mechanism of the incumbent enterprises to the new entrants,and proposes an empirical test.In the empirical research,this paper uses a large sample empirical test to show that the environmental dynamics perceived by the incumbent enterprises positively affect the degree of reactive knowledge search.The two reactive knowledge search strategies positively affect the operational performance and innovation performance of the incumbent enterprises.And dynamic ability plays a positive role in the relationship between reactive technology knowledge search and incumbent enterprises' innovation performance and also a positive role in the relationship between reactive market knowledge search and operational performance.The conclusions of this study confirm that the environmental dynamics perceived by incumbents are the driving force of their reactive knowledge search strategies,revealing how two different reactive knowledge search strategies in incumbents affect the incumbents' performance,which have enriched the environment-strategy-performance researches.The research also reveals and clarifies the internal logical relationship between the dynamic capabilities of the organization and the reactive knowledge search and enterprise performance of the incumbent,deepens and expands the incumbent enterprises' knowledge search' s new connotation in the face of new entrants' competition.The research on the phenomenon of "imitation" of innovators in this paper has certain reference significance for the practice of enterprises in reality.The research indicates that incumbent enterprises can search for knowledge through reactive knowledge to obtain sustainable competitive advantage.This conclusion provides a practical idea for the incumbent enterprises to get out of the"innovator's dilemma".