Strategies for product cannibalism
Kathleen Reavis Conner
Strategic Management Journal, 1988, vol. 9, issue S1, 9-26
Abstract:
This paper explores the question of when (or if) a market leader firm is best off with a strategy of product cannibalism: introducing a new product designed to supersede and hence destroy its own current bestseller before a rival does. Particular attention is given to the payoffs of various superseding product strategies and, given these strategies, whether the leading firm can be expected to invest at least as much in innovation as a challenger. A patent‐race game with a stochastic invention process is presented. The result is that when the leading firm deliberately decides to forgo being first‐mover in the new market, developing and then ‘shelving’ its new product until the current bestseller is challenged successfully by the rival, the leading firm may spend more than its challengers on R&D, thereby retaining a competitive advantage in innovation of new‐generation products. The paper concludes with a discussion of the practical implications of the model.
Date: 1988
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)
Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.4250090704
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:stratm:v:9:y:1988:i:s1:p:9-26
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0143-2095
Access Statistics for this article
More articles in Strategic Management Journal from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().