Competitive Dynamics Across Industries : An Analysis of Inter-Industry Competition in German Passenger Transportation

We explore and analyze competition between actors that stem from different industries. Using an inter-industry focus, we explore competitive parameters between rivals that differ substantially in their resource endowments, organizational structures, practices, and cognitive schemes. The inter-industry focus is also important because many industries are converging and thus instil competitive interaction between actors that were traditionally separated by industry boundaries. The empirical context for this study is the competitive interaction between airlines and railways in Germany. Based on expert interviews and grounded theory analysis, we elucidate the role of awareness, motivation and capability as drivers of competitive actions