Strategic action in network industries: an empirical analysis of the European mobile, страница 16

In conclusion, the competitive actions of mobile phone operators support theoretical models of the way network firms could be expected to compete and cooperate. In this study we have investigated mobile phone operators as an emblematic example of network firms. To understand how mobile phone operators actually behave in the market, we looked at the strategic actions of these firms from a value-network-configuration perspective. Strategic actions were modeled as reconfigurations of primary activities.

The results have several implications. First, they provide implicit support for the value-network model (Stabell & Fjeldstad, 1998) in terms of primary activity categories, and also for the concept of scale as the dominant value-driver stemming from positive network externalities (Katz & Shapiro, 1985). Second, the results support the notion of a horizontally interconnected and vertically layered value system in which cooperation with complementors (Nalebuff & Brandenburger, 1997) in the form of interconnected and layered mediators increase the value of services (Fjeldstad, 1999). The benefits are shared among the competing firms through interconnection. Further, as the market reaches a high degree of penetration, strategic actions that increase the range of services offered become more likely. New service layers are potentially strong complements to the basic mobile services— something which constitutes an essential characteristic of network industries in which cooperative actions play a key role.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the guest editors Maria Bengtsson and Woody Powell and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlier versions of this manuscript and Charles Stabell for his early inputs into the method of data collection. Financial support for this research from Telenor ASA is gratefully acknowledged.

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