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Amazon and Alibaba: Competition in a Dynamic Environment

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Internetworked World (WEB 2016)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing ((LNBIP,volume 296))

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Abstract

This paper investigates the dynamic nature of the e-commerce industry and the competitive relationships based on the market commonality and resource similarity of a focal firm. This theoretical investigation is prefaced by a critical analysis of the factors that contributed to the birth of the digital revolution and its subsequent effect on commerce. The methodological process used is called competitor mapping, which is an extension of the awareness-motivation-capability framework. This study discovered that companies that are characterized by having low market commonality and low resource similarity tend to engage in competition at a moderate level. Strategic decisions or actions taken are typically in the form of attempts to enter new markets or increase current market shares. In this study, each firm’s respective counterpart dominates a valued market, which elicits an opportunity for simultaneous cooperation and competition.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tamkang University, New Taipei City, Taiwan

    Wei-Lun Chang

  2. Naitonal Sun-Yat Sen University, Kaohsiung City, Taiwan

    Thomas J. Allen

Authors
  1. Wei-Lun Chang
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  2. Thomas J. Allen
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Correspondence to Wei-Lun Chang .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA

    Ming Fan

  2. University of Turku, Turku, Finland

    Jukka Heikkilä

  3. University of Turku, Turku, Finland

    Hongxiu Li

  4. University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA

    Michael J. Shaw

  5. Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    Han Zhang

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Chang, WL., Allen, T.J. (2017). Amazon and Alibaba: Competition in a Dynamic Environment. In: Fan, M., Heikkilä, J., Li, H., Shaw, M., Zhang, H. (eds) Internetworked World. WEB 2016. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 296. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69644-7_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69644-7_4

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-69643-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-69644-7

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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