This paper examines the competitive consequences of inter-firm mobility. Since the loss of key members (defined as top decision-makers) to competing firms may amount to a diffusion of a firm's higher order routines, we investigate the conditions under which inter-firm mobility triggers this event. In particular, we focus on: (1) when inter-firm mobility entails groups rather than single individuals; (2) when outbound members found a new enterprise rather than joining an existing competitor; and (3) when members in the destination firm shares the same context as in their prior firm. To address these questions, we examined membership lists pertinent to the Dutch accounting industry to study key member exits and firm dissolutions over the period . We exploit information on the type of membership migration and the competitive saliency of the destination firm as inferred from the recipient status (incumbent vs. start-up) and its geographic location (same vs. different province). The dissolution risk is highest when collective inter-firm mobility results in a new venture within the same geographical area. The theoretical and normative implications of this study are discussed.

In this paper, we conceptualize categories as regions of a cognitive map that structure the market and guide the investment decisions of potential entrants—i.e., of new and established organizations. We advance that, as a category appears altered via incumbents’ acts of recombination, potential entrants face market-specific uncertainty and are discouraged to invest in that category. These negative effects of recombination on market entries are, however, mitigated at increasing values of category status. We test our arguments in the market for electronic music. The analyses of product and organizational entries in music styles between 1978 and 2011 lend support to our arguments.

This article examines the conditions under which organizations publicly respond to unfavorable consumer evaluations that challenge their market identity. Because organizations' market identities are certified by expert evaluations, consumers' devaluations that challenge these expert evaluations represent an identity threat. However, organizations do not always react to consumers' devaluations because of the risks associated to public responses. Hence, we first predict that organizations are more likely to respond to severe devaluations than to weaker ones; second, we propose that organizations, when faced with severe devaluations, are more likely to craft responses that justify their actions and behaviors. We further contend that, for any market identity under consideration, an organization's reputation amplifies these relationships. Analyses of a dataset of London hoteliers' responses to online reviews posted on TripAdvisor during the period 2002-2012 lend substantial support to our hypotheses.