First-mover advantage: An integrative framework in economics, strategic management and marketing with empirical models in the banking industry

Empirical work on the first-mover advantage concept has been somewhat conclusive in that researchers have found more evidence of a first-mover advantage than its absence. However, the theoretical and conceptual models of the first-mover advantage have been divergent within and among the economic and management sciences literature. In three distinct, but related, essays, this dissertation comprises one theoretical research study and two empirical tests of the first-mover advantage concept.;In the theoretical essay, I consider the conceptualization of the terms first-mover and first-mover advantage in order to introduce an integrative conceptual framework that can be applied in the economic and management sciences. Contrary to frameworks already developed in several key studies, the proposed integrative framework shows that temporal considerations if taken into account can aid in the understanding of factors that affect the first-mover advantage.;Through the second research study, I propose to fill a gap in the multinational banking literature with an empirical investigation of first-mover bank activity in order to understand the market effect of the foreign expansion of U.S. banks. Specifically, I test the first-mover advantage hypothesis by analyzing the effect of U.S. bank branch expansion overseas on city market shares of deposits from 1992-2005. Overall, I find that first-mover banks in a foreign city gain a statistically significant advantage over banks that locate in the same city afterwards.;The U.S. banking industry has experienced several changes since the 1980s. These changes, in turn, have motivated banks to employ innovative competitive strategies in order to gain a greater share of the market. The key research issue remaining involves developing a measure to test the extent of innovative banking products. One such test is the first-mover advantage. For the third research study, I test the first-mover advantage hypothesis by analyzing the effect of a major deposit account product adopted in the U.S. banking industry since the 1980s. Overall, I find that first-mover banks, at the branch-level throughout the United States, gain a statistically significant advantage in market share over followers during 1994-2008.