IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/orisre/v26y2015i1p188-209.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Web Footprints of Firms: Using Online Isomorphism for Competitor Identification

Author

Listed:
  • Gautam Pant

    (Department of Management Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242)

  • Olivia R. L. Sheng

    (Department of Operations and Information Systems, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112)

Abstract

Competitive isomorphism refers to the phenomenon of competing firms becoming similar as they mimic each other under common market forces. With the growing presence of firms as well as their consumers and suppliers on the Web, we discover a parallel phenomenon of online isomorphism wherein the Web footprints of competing firms are found to overlap. We propose new online metrics based on the content, in-links, and out-links of firms' websites to measure the presence of online isomorphism as well as uncover its utility in predicting competitor relationships. Through rigorous analysis involving more than 2,600 firms, we find that predictive models for competitor identification based on online metrics are largely superior to those using offline data such as Standard Industrial Classification codes and market values of firms. In addition, combining online and offline metrics can boost the predictive performance. We also find that such models are valuable for identifying nuances of competitor relationships such as asymmetry and the role of industrial divisions. Furthermore, the suggested predictive models can effectively rank firms in an industrial division by their likelihood of being competitors to a focal firm as well as identify new future competitors, thus adding to a portfolio of evidence indicating their utility for managers and analysts.

Suggested Citation

  • Gautam Pant & Olivia R. L. Sheng, 2015. "Web Footprints of Firms: Using Online Isomorphism for Competitor Identification," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 26(1), pages 188-209, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:orisre:v:26:y:2015:i:1:p:188-209
    DOI: 10.1287/isre.2014.0563
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/isre.2014.0563
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/isre.2014.0563?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Liwen Vaughan & Yijun Gao & Margaret Kipp, 2006. "Why are hyperlinks to business Websites created? A content analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 67(2), pages 291-300, May.
    2. Mark Bergen & Margaret A. Peteraf, 2002. "Competitor identification and competitor analysis: a broad-based managerial approach," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(4-5), pages 157-169.
    3. Zhiqiang (Eric) Zheng & Peter Fader & Balaji Padmanabhan, 2012. "From Business Intelligence to Competitive Intelligence: Inferring Competitive Measures Using Augmented Site-Centric Data," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 23(3-part-1), pages 698-720, September.
    4. Bar-Ilan, Judit, 2008. "Informetrics at the beginning of the 21st century—A review," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 1-52.
    5. Henry Small, 1973. "Co‐citation in the scientific literature: A new measure of the relationship between two documents," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 24(4), pages 265-269, July.
    6. Udo Zander & Bruce Kogut, 1995. "Knowledge and the Speed of the Transfer and Imitation of Organizational Capabilities: An Empirical Test," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 6(1), pages 76-92, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Guangtao Zeng & Yuehua Xu, 2019. "Sustainable development and the rating effects: A strategic categorization approach," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(6), pages 1554-1564, November.
    2. Ahmed Abbasi & Jeffrey Parsons & Gautam Pant & Olivia R. Liu Sheng & Suprateek Sarker, 2024. "Pathways for Design Research on Artificial Intelligence," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 35(2), pages 441-459, June.
    3. Jiawei Chen & Yinghui (Catherine) Yang & Hongyan Liu, 2021. "Mining Bilateral Reviews for Online Transaction Prediction: A Relational Topic Modeling Approach," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 32(2), pages 541-560, June.
    4. Yuehua Xu & Guangtao Zeng, 2021. "Corporate social performance aspiration and its effects," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 38(4), pages 1181-1207, December.
    5. Liu, Yezheng & Qian, Yang & Jiang, Yuanchun & Shang, Jennifer, 2020. "Using favorite data to analyze asymmetric competition: Machine learning models," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 287(2), pages 600-615.
    6. Yuanyang Liu & Gautam Pant & Olivia R. L. Sheng, 2020. "Predicting Labor Market Competition: Leveraging Interfirm Network and Employee Skills," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 31(4), pages 1443-1466, December.
    7. Stephen Burgess & Craig M. Parker & Scott Bingley, 2021. "Mapping the online presence of small local sporting clubs," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 72(4), pages 433-448, April.
    8. Nan Jing & Zhao Wu & Shanshan Lyu & Vijayan Sugumaran, 2021. "Information credibility evaluation in online professional social network using tree augmented naïve Bayes classifier," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 645-669, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mingers, John & Leydesdorff, Loet, 2015. "A review of theory and practice in scientometrics," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 246(1), pages 1-19.
    2. Prashant Sharma & Saurabh Sharma, 2023. "Mapping the Intellectual Structure of Mobile Payment Research: A Bibliometric Analysis," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(3), pages 21582440231, September.
    3. Pereira, Vijay & Bamel, Umesh & Temouri, Yama & Budhwar, Pawan & Del Giudice, Manlio, 2023. "Mapping the evolution, current state of affairs and future research direction of managing cross-border knowledge for innovation," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(2).
    4. Peter Wittek & Sándor Darányi & Gustaf Nelhans, 2017. "Ruling out static latent homophily in citation networks," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 110(2), pages 765-777, February.
    5. Magdalena Olczyk, 2016. "A systematic retrieval of international competitiveness literature: a bibliometric study," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 6(3), pages 429-457, December.
    6. Heuschneider, Sara & Herstatt, Cornelius, 2016. "External search for exploration of future discontinuities and trends: Implications from the literature using co-citation and content analysis," Working Papers 92, Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH), Institute for Technology and Innovation Management.
    7. Yanto Chandra, 2018. "Mapping the evolution of entrepreneurship as a field of research (1990–2013): A scientometric analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(1), pages 1-24, January.
    8. Felipe A. Csaszar & Nicolaj Siggelkow, 2010. "How Much to Copy? Determinants of Effective Imitation Breadth," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 21(3), pages 661-676, June.
    9. Piñeiro-Chousa, Juan & López-Cabarcos, M. Ángeles & Romero-Castro, Noelia María & Pérez-Pico, Ada María, 2020. "Innovation, entrepreneurship and knowledge in the business scientific field: Mapping the research front," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 475-485.
    10. Guan-Can Yang & Gang Li & Chun-Ya Li & Yun-Hua Zhao & Jing Zhang & Tong Liu & Dar-Zen Chen & Mu-Hsuan Huang, 2015. "Using the comprehensive patent citation network (CPC) to evaluate patent value," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 105(3), pages 1319-1346, December.
    11. Daniel Torres-Salinas & Nicolás Robinson-García & Álvaro Cabezas-Clavijo & Evaristo Jiménez-Contreras, 2014. "Analyzing the citation characteristics of books: edited books, book series and publisher types in the book citation index," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(3), pages 2113-2127, March.
    12. Maurizio Zollo, 1998. "Strategies or Routines ? Knowledge Codification, Path-Dependence and the Evolution of Post-Acquisition Integration Practices in the U.S. Banking Industry," Center for Financial Institutions Working Papers 97-10, Wharton School Center for Financial Institutions, University of Pennsylvania.
    13. Avimanyu Datta, 2016. "Antecedents To Radical Innovations: A Longitudinal Look At Firms In The Information Technology Industry By Aggregation Of Patents," International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 20(07), pages 1-31, October.
    14. Tsung Teng Chen, 2012. "The development and empirical study of a literature review aiding system," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 92(1), pages 105-116, July.
    15. Yildiz, H. Emre & Murtic, Adis & Zander, Udo, 2024. "Re-conceptualizing absorptive capacity: The importance of teams as a meso-level context," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    16. Gaviria-Marin, Magaly & Merigó, José M. & Baier-Fuentes, Hugo, 2019. "Knowledge management: A global examination based on bibliometric analysis," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 194-220.
    17. Robert P. Garrett Jr. & Jeffrey G. Covin, 2015. "Internal Corporate Venture Operations Independence and Performance: A Knowledge–Based Perspective," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 39(4), pages 763-790, July.
    18. Filippo Corsini & Rafael Laurenti & Franziska Meinherz & Francesco Paolo Appio & Luca Mora, 2019. "The Advent of Practice Theories in Research on Sustainable Consumption: Past, Current and Future Directions of the Field," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-19, January.
    19. Chang, Sungyong & Kim, Hyunseob & Song, Jaeyong & Lee, Keun, 2024. "Dynamics of imitation versus innovation in technological leadership change: Latecomers’ catch-up strategies in diverse technological regimes," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(9).
    20. Pamela E. Sandstrom, 2001. "Scholarly communication as a socioecological system," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 51(3), pages 573-605, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:orisre:v:26:y:2015:i:1:p:188-209. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.