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臺大管理論叢
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27
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3
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aged. The observed conditioning effect of industry age is consistent with the historical
development of digital standard competition: Time division multiple access, a digital
standard endorsed by the CTIA, was not widely adopted. Cell-phone service providers with
more ties to the CTIA were slower to adopt code division multiple access, a competing
technology that later became the industry standard. Managers’ ties to extra-industry firms
had no direct or moderating impact on firm subscriber increase.
The results of this study suggest that being able to scan the environment through top
managers’ relationships with competitors and an industry association is crucial to firm
performance in the focal industry. However, as the industry structure develops, the
managerial capabilities of scanning the environment through the lens of industry associations
become less critical to firm performance. This finding suggests that for earlier entrants,
active involvement in the focal industry association is essential to performance. For entrants
to the focal industry at any time, managerial relationships with competitors are always
crucial to firm performance in the focal industry.
On the basis of studying a TMT’s environmental scanning capabilities in the context of
industry evolution, this paper contributes to the theoretical and empirical understanding of
social capital, demonstrating the role of social capital as a “facilitator” of task performance
(Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998; Moran, 2005) and showing that various “types” of external
ties affect firm performance differently. Furthermore, this paper identifies industry evolution
as one industry condition under which the benefits of external ties could diminish and
provides empirical support for this (Stam et al., 2014). This paper indicates that firms can
and must adjust their environmental capabilities by managing their managerial talents in
response to changes in the industry environment post entry, to guide practitioners in
determining whom and when to hire or promote to the TMT according to the industry life
stage.
However, we must be careful in interpreting the results presented in the paper, which
are based on observations in one industry that is technology-related and has evolved rapidly.
The same results might not be derived from industries that are static or non-technology-
related. In addition, the current study did not consider the magnitude or strength of external
ties because they were measured by counting the total TMT member ties. Furthermore, the
study did not examine all firms entering the mobile communications service industry
because of the problem of missing cellular licensees’ background information, entrants’
TMTs, and subscriber numbers. However, this study included most early entrants to the
industry.