Pioneering advantages in manufacturing and service industries: Empirical evidence from nine countries

Although one might expect differences between manufacturing and service fir ms in pioneering advantages, the extent of these differences has nor yet be en investigated This is the first cross-national study that compares such d ifferences in nine countries/regions: the United States, the United Kingdom , Germany, Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Singapore. We develop several hypotheses concerning the perceptions of managers of manufa cturing firms and service firms regarding the benefits and post-entry risks of pioneering, and the cost and differentiation advantages accruing to the pioneering firm. We test the hypotheses with data from 2,419 firms represe nting all nine countries and both industrial sectors. We find that: (1) man agers from all countries perceive pioneering to be associated with higher m arket share and/or profitability; (2) manufacturing firm managers perceive pioneering risks to be signtficantly more important than do service firm ma nagers; (3) cost and differentiation advantages of pioneering are, for the most parr, more significant to manufacturing than to service firm managers; (4) Western manufacturing firm managers perceive the cost advantages to be more important than Asian pacific manufacturing firm managers. We conclude by presenting the managerial implications of our findings. Copyright (C) 1 999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.