The many moods of inter‐organizational imitation: A critical review

The management literature is paying increasing attention to the phenomenon of imitation. However, there are several gaps in understanding what drives firms’ imitative behaviors. Furthermore, a fragmented array of disciplinary perspectives has investigated imitation phenomena in the past. This paper reviews the literature on imitation and offers a unifying framework to understand what theory has said about the predictors of imitative behaviors, in terms of purposes, driving forces and target. At the end of the review, two over‐arching rationales for imitation seem to emerge: risk reduction and search for effectiveness. Next, the review distinguishes between what drives the general propensity for imitation of a firm and what makes a specific decision more likely to be imitated by the same firm. Implications and indications for future research are offered in the final section. No single company, regardless of its determination, energy, imagination, or resources, is big enough or solvent enough to do all the productive first things that will ever occur in its industry and to always beat its competitors to all the innovations emanating from the industry. More important, no single company can afford even to try to be first in everything in its field. T. Levitt (1966)