A study of corporate market and non‐market behaviors in Chinese transitional environment

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to integrate the corporate market and non‐market behaviors (such as social, legal, and political activities) into the research of competitive interaction. Design/methodology/approach - “Structured content analysis” is used in analyzing the longitudinal data of five real estate enterprises from an industrial journal during the last seven years. Findings - Competitive interactions with market and non‐market contents involve the expanded competitive scope, behaviors, and relationships. New explanations beyond previous literatures are provided to explain the expanded competitive behaviors (especially in resource‐oriented and mixed scope) by analyzing the characteristics of actions and responses. Practical implications - Firms must effectively focus on the interaction of market and non‐market competitive behaviors. Industrial competitors in the market environment can engage in collaborative or cooperative actions with non‐market issues in order to obtain collective benefits. Originality/value - This paper expands on previous studyies of competitive interaction by integrating the important non‐market content, especially categorizing it in the Chinese transitional environment with typical evidence.