Here’s an Opportunity: Knowledge Sharing Among Competitors as a Response to Buy-in Uncertainty

Tristan L. Botelho ()
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Tristan L. Botelho: Yale School of Management, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06511

Organization Science, 2018, vol. 29, issue 6, 1033-1055

Abstract: Although knowledge sharing among competitors is seemingly counterintuitive, scholars have found that competitors share knowledge under certain conditions: among actors who have a preexisting relationship and who expect direct reciprocity. However, there are examples of knowledge sharing among competitors that cannot fully be explained using these relational mechanisms. In this study, I propose that in markets where competitors are a set of key stakeholders, knowledge sharing is a strategic response to high levels of buy-in uncertainty related to a potential opportunity, namely, the likelihood that stakeholders will come to realize the value of a potential opportunity in a timely fashion. Using a unique data set of knowledge sharing among investment professionals on a digital platform, this study leverages variation in the platform’s knowledge-sharing structure to test this theory. I find that knowledge sharing among these competitors is most likely when buy-in uncertainty for a given opportunity is high and that this knowledge sharing does lead to subsequent buy-in.

Keywords: competition; digital platforms; knowledge sharing; markets; performance; strategy; uncertainty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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