Product technology imitation over the product diffusion cycle: Which companies and product innovations do competitors imitate more quickly?

We contribute to the imitation literature by shedding light on product imitation dynamics over the market evolution, a hitherto-overlooked level of analysis. First, we introduce product diffusion within a more integrative theory of product imitation. Second, we investigate the time to imitation of a new product technology: our baseline hypothesis is that the time to imitation decreases as the product diffusion in the market increases. Third, we extend our prediction by differentiating by the type of innovator-i.e., the market leader and a member of the same strategic group-and by the type of product technology-i.e., functionality-defining technologies and substitute technologies. We hypothesize that, over the product diffusion cycle, product technologies launched by market leaders are copied more quickly than ones launched by non-market leader firms; product technologies launched by members of a focal firm's own strategic group are copied more quickly than ones launched by outsiders; and substitute technologies are copied more quickly than functionality-defining technologies. We test our hypotheses in the context of the UK mobile phone industry, by exploiting a unique database on twenty-two product innovations introduced by thirteen mobile handset manufacturers between 1997 and 2008. The model estimations provide support for most of our hypotheses.