Strategic action in network industries: an empirical analysis of the European mobile, страница 8

In addition, monthly customer data for all mobile telecom operators was acquired from IDATE, Institut de l’Audiovisuel et de Telecommunications en Europe, Montpellier. Country-level data were obtained from WTID, World Telecommunication Indicators Database, International Telecommunication Union, Geneva.

The study focuses on the build-up of the mobile telephone sector in 12 European markets with varying characteristics, but in similar legal and statutory environments shaped by EU directives. The countries are Ireland, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Norway.^[1] By the end of 1997, there was a total of 28 mobile phone operators with at least two in every country. The period under investigation extends from August 1996 to the end of December 1997, during which time the sector developed and acquired its characteristic competitive behavior. During these 17 months, the number of mobile phone customers in the 12 countries rose from 28 million to 50 million users and reached 14% of the total population. Further descriptive statistics on the sample, the 12 countries and the key variables are shown in Exhibit 1.

5.2.  Identification of strategic actions

A detailed content analysis of every issue of ECN during the period under investigation was performed. Structured content analysis is the traditional method used by researchers in competitive dynamics to identify strategic actions (Chen & MacMillan, 1992; Smith et al., 1992). The articles in the ECN newsletter were processed by way of a systematic procedure to make replication possible and to check inter-coder reliability (Neuman, 1997).

First, the firms licensed to provide a mobile phone service in any of the 12 countries in the sample were all identified as competitors. All articles were searched for the names of the 28 operators in order to identify their strategic actions during the period. In line with Porter (1980), a strategic action is defined as a competitive

Exhibit 1

Descriptive Statistics

Sample: 199 strategic actions in 12 countries and 17 months

Descriptive statistics and correlation matrix (based on 204 month/country observations):