ABSTRACT
Competitive asymmetry—the notion that two firms may not view their relationship or interaction in the marketplace equally—is very prevalent in business competition. Simply put, a firm’s managers and outside stakeholders will perceive the rival with the resource profile most similar to the firm’s own and/or with the highest salience regarding the resources critical to the firm’s operations as posing the greatest challenge to the firm’s operational capability and, therefore, as imposing the greatest competitive tension. This study examines the effect of capability to contest, similarity and salience, on market performance in a broadcasting industry. Based on the secondary data released by Nielsen Research, this study adopted conceptualizations of competitive dynamics. The results indicate that greater similarity among TV stations leads to higher TV ratings, while the opposite effect applies on salience. Further analysis indicates that there is an interaction effect between similarity and salience. There is a slight difference between high and low salience when the similarity between the two TV stations exists, while low similarity indicates that greater salience leads to lower TV ratings. Academic and managerial implications are further discussed in this study.
