Shocks and Competitive Consequences: Landscapes of Churn, Burn or Renewal

Environmental shocks constitute a sudden reorganizing of firms' important external conditions. Familiar forms of environmental shock include technological, regulatory, and economic shocks, and each may vary in magnitude, scope, and velocity. Moreover, especially when a shock involves a radical departure from existing structures, it may destabilize an industry and reset its evolutionary clock. These conditions typically contribute to a shift in an industry's structure of competition (e.g., Joskow, 2005; Winston, 1998), largely due to a change in the composition of players in the industry (via entry and exit), the balance of power among institutional actors, and the dimensions of competition (Madsen & Walker, 2007, 2017). The purpose of this session is to engage a group of panelists in a moderated and interactive discussion of the temporal and competitive consequences of environmental shocks for firms, industries, and regional concentrations of economic activity."