Keywords
Asymmetric oligopoly
Investment under uncertainty.
How to Cite
Abstract
Objective – The purpose of this article is to analyze the impact of preemption (first move advantage, with the consequent emergence of negative externalities to competitors) in situations that consider the optimal moment for investment, in the context of asymmetric oligopolies, and using the options games method.
Design/methodology/approach – The developed model was applied to the Brazilian aluminum can industry, in which three firms made up an asymmetric oligopoly, allowing strategic interactions and their consequences on firms’ investment decisions to be analyzed.
Findings – In situations of preemption, the results show the relevance of using a dynamic model, allowing us to observe the importance of obtaining a competitive advantage in cost, and showing that it is possible to obtain monopoly profits or take advantage of isolated expansion for a longer period. If this advantage is great, rivals’ threat of preemption can be considered irrelevant, and that the firm will invest in monopolistic time, ignoring the possibility of rivals’ entry.
Practical implications – In a competitive environment, firms need to decide whether the best strategy is to invest earlier, acquiring a competitive advantage over their rivals, or to postpone their investments, to acquire more information and mitigate the eventual consequences of market uncertainties. This work shows how to do it.
Originality/value – This is the first paper that, by applying real options games, studies the impact of preemption of investment in the oligopolistic asymmetric environment of the Brazilian industry of aluminum cans.
If a paper is approved for publication, its copyright has to be transferred by the author(s) to the Review of Business Management – RBGN.
Accordingly, authors are REQUIRED to send RBGN a duly completed and signed Copyright Transfer Form. Please refer to the following template: [Copyright Transfer]
The conditions set out by the Copyright Transfer Form state that the Review of Business Management – RBGN owns, free of charge and permanently, the copyright of the papers it publishes. Although the authors are required to sign the Copyright Transfer Form, RBGN allows authors to hold and use their own copyright without restrictions.
The texts published by RBGN are the sole responsibility of their authors.
The review has adopted the CC-BY Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 allowing redistribution and reuse of papers on condition that the authorship is properly credited.