IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ororsc/v4y1993i2p152-180.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Death of the Lethargic: Effects of Expansion into New Technical Subfields on Performance in a Firm's Base Business

Author

Listed:
  • Will Mitchell

    (School of Business Administration, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1234)

  • Kulwant Singh

    (School of Business Administration, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1234)

Abstract

This paper finds that industry incumbents that do not expand into new technical subfields tend to fare poorly in their established businesses, even if the market for the established products continues to exist. Firms that expand from their established businesses survive longer and achieve greater subsequent market share than competitors that do not expand. By some measures, however, a failed attempt to expand into a new subfield may be even more harmful to a base business than nonexpansion. The study employs conventional and accelerated event-time regression models to analyze market share and survival. The sample, which includes 371 incumbents in four base subfields of the medical diagnostic imaging industry between 1953 and 1989, examines performance following the emergence of five new technical subfields of the industry.

Suggested Citation

  • Will Mitchell & Kulwant Singh, 1993. "Death of the Lethargic: Effects of Expansion into New Technical Subfields on Performance in a Firm's Base Business," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 4(2), pages 152-180, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:4:y:1993:i:2:p:152-180
    DOI: 10.1287/orsc.4.2.152
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/orsc.4.2.152
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/orsc.4.2.152?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
    ---><---

    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:ororsc:v:4:y:1993:i:2:p:152-180. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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.