Strike Effects on the Structure of a Product Market

This illustrative study of the effects of a strike‐induced supply interruption in an Australian product market shows that, although in the short term customers changed to a competitor's product when their usual brands were unavailable, overall market share returned to previous levels in the post‐strike period. However, the structure of the market was changed in that intra‐company brand competition increased after the strike relative to the degree of inter‐company brand competition. The study was too limited to rule out the influence of advertising, but this change is likely to have an influence on future profitability policy.