UNCERTAINTY IN LEARNING CURVES: IMPLICATIONS FOR FIRST MOVER ADVANTAGE Michael J. Leiblein Fisher College of Business The Ohio State University
[email protected] John S. Chen Warrington College of Business Administration University of Florida
[email protected] Hart E. Posen School of Business University of Wisconsin-Madison
[email protected] March 2021 Acknowledgements: The authors contributed equally to the study and are listed in the order determined by a random draw. The authors have benefitted from conversations with seminar participants at the University of Pennsylvania, University of Michigan, the University of Southern California, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the University of Colorado, and the 2019 Academy of Management Review theory development workshop. In addition, we are grateful for specific comments and suggestions provided by Paul Adler, Jay Barney, Janet Bercovitz, Ashton Hawk, Michael Jensen, Steven Postrel, Jeff Reuer, Richard Saouma, Jordan Seigel, Tony Tong, and Maggie Zhou. Uncertainty in Learning Curves UNCERTAINTY IN LEARNING CURVES: IMPLICATIONS FOR FIRST MOVER ADVANTAGE ABSTRACT: The existence of a learning curve, in which costs decline with cumulative experience, suggests that early entry (and production) provides learning opportunities that create advantage by reducing future production costs relative to later entrants. We argue that this proposition is subject to an under-appreciated limitation — that progress down the learning curve may be uncertain. If there is uncertainty in the learning curve, then the taken-for-granted wisdom regarding the benefits of learning curves may over- or under-emphasize the value of early entry. We consider two forms of uncertainty — prospective (future production costs) and contemporaneous (current production costs).