Imitation is ubiquitous, yet the comparative efficacy of imitation strategies is poorly understood. A popular imitation strategy, sometimes called benchmarking, “mixes-and-matches” the practices common to leading firms. Using computational models, we compare benchmarking to the...

Imitation is a central construct in strategy theory because it is assumed to diminish inter-firm performance heterogeneity within an industry. We revisit this assumption, which is premised on the logic that imitated practices act directly to make the imitator more similar to its target. This...

Strategic imitation occurs when a firm purposefully attempts to reproduce, in whole or part, other firms’ products, processes, capabilities, technologies, structures, and/or decisions in its pursuit of competitive advantage. Imitation is a pervasive firm behavior, and the literature relating...