Product Introduction Patterns Resulting in Market Share Expansion/Erosion:

A Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis

Abstract

In research on competitive dynamics, several studies exploring the relationships between competitive action patterns and firm performance have argued that competitive aggressiveness is necessary for firm survival in markets where the advantage is temporal. These studies have identified three components of competitive aggressiveness: volume, complexity, and competitive heterogeneity, and have analyzed the causal relationship between these components and firm performance to test their hypothesis. However, due to the limitations of the statistical analysis, the possibility of causal complexity, causal asymmetry, and causal equifinality between the three components and firm performance has not been considered. This paper explores the relationship between the three components of aggressive competitive action patterns (product introduction patterns) and firm performance (market share expansion/erosion) using fsQCA, an analytical method suitable for analysis of causal complexity, causal asymmetry, and causal equifinality. A fsQCA using data from the soft drink industry revealed two product introduction patterns for firms that have increased their market share and two other product introduction patterns for firms that have lost their market share.