Optimal Distinctiveness
A New Agenda for the Study of Competitive Positioning of Organizations and Markets

This Element reviews the historical grounding and recent development of optimal distinctiveness scholarship.

Eric Yanfei Zhao (Author)

9781108964876, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 5 May 2022

75 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 0.6 cm, 0.17 kg

Optimal distinctiveness – being both 'similar to' and 'different from' peers – is an important imperative of organizational life and represents a common research question of organizational scholars across various disciplinary domains such as strategy, organization theory, entrepreneurship, and international business. This Element reviews the historical grounding and recent development of optimal distinctiveness scholarship, based on which an orienting framework is proposed to stress the highly contextualized and dynamic nature of optimal distinctiveness. The orienting framework provides several powerful and unique angles for understanding organizations' competitive positioning in various types of markets, for applying optimal distinctiveness research to different levels of analysis, and for nurturing a more cross-disciplinary and mutually generative conversation on optimal distinctiveness theory.

1. Optimal Distinctiveness Theory in Organization Studies
2. The Historical Grounding of Optimal Distinctiveness Research
3. An Orienting Framework for Macro Research on Optimal Distinctiveness
4. Expanding the Scope: How the Optimal Distinctiveness Framework Can Bring New Insights into Multiple Research Streams
5. Zooming In: How the Optimal Distinctiveness Framework Informs Studies of Organizations' Competitive Positioning
6. Zooming Out: How the Optimal Distinctiveness Framework Informs Studies of Market Category Dynamics
7 Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Organizational theory & behaviour [KJU]