Multimarket pioneers: Does multimarket contact improve their performance?

First-mover advantages (FMA) and multimarket contact (MMC) have evolved independently in the strategic management literature. This is surprising because FMA erode as a result of competition which, in turn, is affected by MMC. This paper links these literatures through the concept of spheres of influence and analyses the effect of MMC on pioneers' profitability. We use the order of market entry to identify spheres of influence and to determine their distribution among multimarket firms. The distribution of spheres of influence allows us to distinguish between reciprocal MMC and non-reciprocal MMC and to study how each of them determines pioneers' profitability. We test our hypotheses in the mobile telecommunications industry. Our findings show that reciprocal MMC has a positive effect on pioneers’ results, but non-reciprocal MMC negatively affects them.     

“势力范围”概念考释

甲午年之季,伴随着西势东渐,"势力范围"流行于中国.该文通过语源学的深入考察,认为"势力范围"作为西方国际关系的一个概念,有着深刻的历史根源,其作为一种政治概念出现,到形成一种国际法概念,经历了一个过程.传统国际法中"势力范围"是指列强掠夺非洲的过程中分割非洲的一种形式,是领土权的一种.以后,"势力范围"被政治家运用到世界其他地方,无不与该列强的领土野心联系在一起.     

Random sections of a sphere

The Bertrand paradox is that, whereas we can define in a unique way a point uniformly at random in the interior of a circle, uniformly random chords can be given a variety of competing specifications. This is generalized to spheres, and the distributions of the uniformly random line sections (chords) and plane sections (disks) are tabulated. This includes the large class which are constructed as uniformly random chords of uniformly random disk sections.