IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ems/eureri/7119.html

Why “They” never can be as good as “Us”: How other organizations must be worse off on essential features

Author

Listed:
  • van Rekom, J.
  • van Nierop, A.E.

Abstract

Being different from competitors, in a positive sense, is an important asset to organizations. Well-chosen emphasis on distinctive organizational features is very helpful in achieving a superior position relative to rival organizations. However, organizations often claim to be distinctive on features where they appear be at best only moderately distinctive. Systematic bias seems to arise because what members see as distinctive about their organization is so closely interwoven with how they see its identity. In this study, organization members rated competitors systematically lower on a feature to the extent that they considered that feature to make up the essence of the identity of their own organization. The results point to a serious tendency to underestimate comparable competitors as a consequence of the social comparison heuristics. Managerially, this implies an important caution when designing corporate strategy and positioning.

Suggested Citation

  • van Rekom, J. & van Nierop, A.E., 2005. "Why “They” never can be as good as “Us”: How other organizations must be worse off on essential features," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2005-073-MKT, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    • Handle: RePEc:ems:eureri:7119
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repub.eur.nl/pub/7119/ERS%202005%20073%20MKT.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David L. Deephouse, 1999. "To be different, or to be the same? It’s a question (and theory) of strategic balance," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(2), pages 147-166, February.
    2. Matthew Rabin, 2002. "Inference by Believers in the Law of Small Numbers," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 775-816.
    3. Edwards, Jeffrey R., 1995. "Alternatives to Difference Scores as Dependent Variables in the Study of Congruence in Organizational Research," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 64(3), pages 307-324, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. David M. Ritzwoller & Joseph P. Romano, 2019. "Uncertainty in the Hot Hand Fallacy: Detecting Streaky Alternatives to Random Bernoulli Sequences," Papers 1908.01406, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2021.
    2. Kamini Gupta & Donal Crilly & Thomas Greckhamer, 2020. "Stakeholder engagement strategies, national institutions, and firm performance: A configurational perspective," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(10), pages 1869-1900, October.
    3. Xueyan Dong & Jingyu Gao & Sunny Li Sun & Kangtao Ye, 2021. "Doing extreme by doing good," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 38(1), pages 291-315, March.
    4. Alessandri, Todd M. & Khan, Raihan H., 2006. "Market performance and deviance from industry norms: (Mis)alignment of organizational risk and industry risk," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 59(10-11), pages 1105-1115, October.
    5. Jonas Radbruch & Amelie Schiprowski, 2025. "Interview Sequences and the Formation of Subjective Assessments," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 92(2), pages 1226-1256.
    6. Axel Stahmer, 2015. "Fund flows inducing mispricing of risk in competitive financial markets," ESMT Research Working Papers ESMT-15-04, ESMT European School of Management and Technology.
    7. Henrik Andersson & Mikael Svensson, 2008. "Cognitive ability and scale bias in the contingent valuation method," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 39(4), pages 481-495, April.
    8. Yugang Li & Xiuyuan Fang, 2024. "Comparing the Effects of Corporate Strategic Deviance on Corporate Growth and Corporate Profit: Evidence from Chinese Firms," SAGE Open, , vol. 14(2), pages 21582440241, May.
    9. Cassella, Stefano & Chen, Te-Feng & Gulen, Huseyin & Liu, Yan, 2025. "Extracting extrapolative beliefs from market prices: An augmented present-value approach," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    10. ,, 2006. "Competition over agents with boundedly rational expectations," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 1(2), pages 207-231, June.
    11. Andreas Koch & Harald Strotmann, 2006. "Determinants of Innovative Activity in Newly Founded Knowledge Intensive Business Service Firms," International Studies in Entrepreneurship, in: Michael Fritsch & Juergen Schmude (ed.), Entrepreneurship in the Region, chapter 10, pages 195-224, Springer.
    12. , G. & , & ,, 2008. "Non-Bayesian updating: A theoretical framework," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 3(2), June.
    13. Kaivanto, Kim, 2008. "Alternation Bias and the Parameterization of Cumulative Prospect Theory," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, pages 91-107.
    14. Julius H. Johnson, Jr. & Dinesh A. Mirchandani & Seng-Su Tsang, 2008. "Competitive Dynamics, Global Industry Cycles, Integration-Responsiveness, and Financial Performance in Emerging and Industrialized Country Markets," International Journal of Business and Economics, School of Management Development, Feng Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan, vol. 7(1), pages 61-88, April.
    15. Francesco Bogliacino & Pietro Ortoleva, 2014. "The Behavior of Others as a Reference Point," Working Papers 2014-4, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    16. Youngtak M. Kim & John R. Busenbark & Seung-Hwan Jeong & Son K. Lam, 2022. "The performance impact of marketing dualities: a response surface approach to resolving empirical challenges," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 50(5), pages 915-940, September.
    17. Hyytinen, Ari & Pajarinen, Mika, 2005. "Why Are All New Entrepreneurs Better Than Average? Evidence from Subjective Failure Rate Expectations," Discussion Papers 987, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    18. Mohrschladt, Hannes, 2021. "The ordering of historical returns and the cross-section of subsequent returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    19. Dohmen, Thomas & Falk, Armin & Huffman, David & Marklein, Felix & Sunde, Uwe, 2009. "Biased probability judgment: Evidence of incidence and relationship to economic outcomes from a representative sample," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(3), pages 903-915, December.
    20. André de Palma & Gordon M. Myers & Yorgos Y. Papageorgiou, 2023. "Imperfect public choice," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 56(4), pages 1413-1429, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C44 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Operations Research; Statistical Decision Theory
    • L22 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Organization and Market Structure
    • M - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics
    • M31 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising - - - Marketing

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:ems:eureri:7119. 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: RePub The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask RePub to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/erimanl.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.