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臺大管理論叢
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compete with the other three competitors in a certain month. Meanwhile, the control
variables are the range of actions, the age of each firm, the number of competitors’ actions
for the previous month, and the size of firms.
3. Findings
The empirical results of this study suggest that (1) a negative relationship exists
between the degree of multimarket contact and new product launch speed, (2) a positive
relationship exists between new product launch speed and firm performance, and (3) the
number of competitors’ actions can strengthen the negative relationship between the degree
of multimarket contact and new product launch speed.
4. Research Limitations/Implications
This work has several limitations and implications. First of all, this study uses “KMW”
as the major database and the “United Daily News” as the secondary resource to verify the
news articles. However, the results of this study could be misleading because some
information on the actions is difficult to unearth completely. Such misleading results from a
single information resource could be minimized by future researchers by identifying more
impartial and objective resources.
Secondly, the performance of the samples in this study, Hi-Life and OK, was estimated
by multiplying the market share of each firm by the total monthly revenue of chain
convenience stores. Therefore, some possible bias may have occurred. Firm performance
measurements may be more accurate if future studies can avoid this limitation.
Third of all, this study adopts the variable “number of competitors’ actions” from
Derfus et al. (2008) as a proxy of “competitor action levels.” Future studies could be more
penetrating by overcoming this problem when analyzing news.
Finally, the measurement of MMC in this study differs from the usual industry
measurement because of the different characteristics of industries. Thus, the generalization of
this study is decreased, which should be noticed in future research.
5. Originality/Contribution
Very few studies discuss the issue of new product launch speed and firm performance
with a dynamic competitive perspective. This study emphasizes the relationship among the
MMC, new product launch speed, and firm performance on the basis of the MMC and