Why do leaders help followers follow?

ABSTRACTImitation by followers has been perceived to erode a leader's competitive advantage and, thus, it is essential for a leader to ensure that imitations are difficult and imperfect. Some industry cases, however, illustrate a puzzling phenomenon whereby leaders help, rather than hinder, followers’ imitation efforts. Drawing on relevant literature and theories, we suggest three rationales behind such strategic behaviour, which we term ‘imitation promotion,’ by a leading firm: (1) to share costs and jointly penetrate the market by driving followers to develop complementary products or services; (2) to make followers follow its technological trajectory, limit their differentiated R&D efforts, and minimise substitution threats and (3) to easily learn from followers’ imitative experimentation and use it to inform its next innovative endeavours. We develop and articulate these three theoretical rationales with illustrative cases.KEYWORDS: imitationinnovationleader strategytechnological diffusion Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 The PRISM team of Intersil was acquired by several firms, including GlobespanVirata, Conexant and Ikanos, and by Qualcomm Atheros in 2015.2 AMD decided to focus on producing CPUs rather than complementary products because the market was already saturated with numerous competitors manufacturing such products. Additionally, AMD's shared beginnings with Intel at Fairchild gave them a foundational understanding of CPU technology, making direct imitation possible and further solidifying their decision to pursue CPU production (Heiley and Shawn Citation1997).3 AMD adopted the Out-of-Order Execution structure, changing Intel's super-scalar structure, and the real-number operation and L3 Cache first before Intel.4 Figure 1 denotes the CPU performance of Intel and AMD in MHz. Each circle and triangle represents the CPU performance of Intel and AMD, respectively. It records only the first version of the CPU with the same performance in MHz.5 The differences between third- and fourth-generation jet fighters mainly are pulse-doppler radar, high maneuverability, look-down/shoot down radar.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by National Research Foundation of Korea (Grant Number NRF-2022S1A3A2A02089685) and Korea Institute of Marine Science & Technology Promotion (KIMST) funded by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, Korea (Grant Number RS-2023-00256331).Notes on contributorsGangmin ParkGangmin Park is a PhD candidate at the Graduate School of Future Strategy, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and a senior researcher at Software Policy and Research Institute, a government-affiliated institute with the aim of developing ICT policy and regulation. He earned his M.S. in Management from Seoul National University and his B.S. in Computer Science from KAIST. His works focus specifically on the innovation strategy.Sangyoon YiSangyoon Yi is an associate professor of strategy and organisation at the Graduate School of Future Strategy, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). His-research centres around strategic design of information systems and organisations, drawing on the theories of technological innovation, strategic management, organisational design and learning. His-work has been published in scholarly journals including Information & Management, Organisation Science, and Strategic Management Journal.