Growth Strategy and Hierarchy Theory: Emergence of Super-players in the Healthcare Computed Tomography Oligopoly

Abstract

This paper examines how firms discover effective strategic positions in a business technology-driven oligopoly context (limited players, no possible entrant and rapid technological change). In such settings, neither rational deduction nor local search is likely to lead a firm to a successful growth: firms escalate by launching new products faster, developing new services or acquiring new capabilities. Demonstrating the complexity of the business oligopoly, however, allows us to define the emergence of a new type of players, “super-player”, able to write a new set of rules and to substantially influence the industry for a given period of time. With respect to the Hierarchy Theory, we find the attributes of context changing, filtering information and simplifying multilevel business systems for this “super-player”. More surprisingly, we find a succession of “super-players” that we identify as a consequence of co-evolution for a given oligopoly-type industry, in the Healthcare Computed Tomography: the “super-player” evolves in a way that the entire industry ultimately adapts itself and co-evolves in the same way.