Pre-Entry Resources, Strategic Positioning Choices and Introduction of Dominant Designs

We investigate the role that strategic positioning choices and pre-entry endowments play in determining the post entry innovative performance of firms that enter new markets. We hypothesize that entrepreneurial entrants possessing greater levels of pre-entry endowments and those that choose to operate in multiple niches will introduce products with dominant design features earlier, while entrants that position themselves aggressively in new markets will lag behind in introducing such products. We also hypothesize that pre-entry endowments positively moderate the relationship between post-entry technology strategy choices and early introduction of dominant design features. We test our hypotheses using longitudinal data on entrepreneurial startups in the computer hard disk drive industry from 1974 to 1995.