The broker profits by intermediating between two (or more) parties. Using a biform game, we examine whether such a position can confer a competitive advantage, as well as whether any such advantage could persist if actors formed relations strategically. Our analysis reveals that, if one...

Recent research in strategy has called attention to the fact that particular positions in inter-firm networks may serve as a source of competitive advantage for the firms occupying them. This empirical literature has nonetheless found it difficult to separate the effects of positions from those...

How does competition among economic actors determine the value that each is able to appropriate? We provide a formal, general framework within which this question can be posed and answered, and then provide several results. Chief among them is a condition that is both required for, and...

This paper presents a formal theory of subjective rationality and demonstrates its application to corporate strategy. An agent is said to be subjectively rational when decisions are consistent with the available facts and, where these are lacking, with the agent's own subjective assessments. A...

This paper presents the first formal examination of role of causal ambiguity as a barrier to imitation. Here, the aspiring imitator faces a knowledge (i.e., "capabilities-based") barrier to imitation that is both causal and ambiguous in a precise sense of both words. Imitation conforms to a...

Formal contracting addresses the moral hazard problems inherent in interfirm deals via explicit terms designed to achieve incentive alignment. Alternatively, when firms expect to interact repeatedly, relational mechanisms may achieve similar results without the associated costs. However, as we...

We consider extensive-form games in which the information structure is not known and ask how much of that structure can be inferred from the distribution on action profiles generated by player strategies. One game is said to observationally imitate another when the distribution on action...