Optimal distinctiveness: the balance of organizational conformity and distinctiveness in markets
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2024-06-26
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en
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To survive in its environment, an organization needs to be perceived as being conforming to the standards in the market. In addition to conforming, an organization wants to create an identity that distinguishes it from others in the market to attract attention, and ultimately necessary resources, from key stakeholders. This contradiction that organizations consequently face, conformation and distinctiveness, is captured in the concept of optimal distinctiveness. To extend current literature on optimal distinctiveness, this paper focuses on the question whether market institutionalization, represented by differences in maturity between markets, has an influence on the relationship between optimal distinctiveness and organizational performance. It is hypothesized that the shape of the expected curvilinear relation between optimal distinctiveness and organizational performance is steeper for less institutionalized younger markets, and flatter for more institutionalized older markets. The results demonstrate no curvilinear relationship between optimal distinctiveness and organizational performance and no moderating effect of market institutionalization on this relationship. This means that organizational performance is not explained by a curvilinear shape of optimal distinctiveness and that the degree of institutionalization in a market does not influence this relationship.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen