The relationship between a country's institutional quality and product technology homogeneity: the case of the global mobile phone industry

Abstract

This research analyses the relation between the level of institutional quality of a country and the degree the competitive intensity between companies. Country-level factors, in fact, represent an important aspect to be considered in particular for companies that find themselves competing in several countries. In the first part of this thesis, an study of the existing literature is presented in order to under technology cycles and identify the drivers which lead to the emergence of a dominant design. In the second part, attention is paid more to the institutional context and institutional voids and to the way in which these affect the competitiveness between companies, according to the different perspectives of the authors. In the third chapter, an empirical analysis is conducted to understand if and how institutional quality affects competitive intensity and the effect it has on product technology homogeneity. The reference market is that of mobile phone market in the period from 2009 to 2019.