Business Model Imitation and New Venture Performance

Research on competitive imitation has become increasingly important in strategic management. To date, imitative processes have been studied independently and within industries only. This paper builds arguments on the direct and interaction effects of two different forms of competitive imitation – intra- and extraindustry business model imitation breadth – on new venture performance. An analysis of 96 new ventures in the manufacturing industry in Switzerland shows that both forms of imitation have significant positive direct effects on new venture performance. Further, the findings support the interaction effect as they demonstrate that the direct effect of intraindustry imitation breadth is more important for new venture performance for ventures with a high level of extraindustry imitation breadth. The paper contributes not only to imitation literature, but also to the burgeoning literature of business model innovation