世代競爭下的阻止策略

DETERRENCE STRATEGY IN GENERATION COMPETITION

有些產業的新世代生產線，其主材料面積較前一世代擴大了數倍，加上材料使用效率提高，使得產能倍數成長，且單位成本顯著降低。設備使用者常須負起技術研發的責任。然而，研發與設備的投資資金受限於本身的利潤，本文要探討的問題為：低成本廠商是否可迫使對手放棄研發新世代技術。其次，低成本廠商會真的去執行延遲策略嗎？本文發現，當新世代產能成長幅度太大或太小，採延遲策略不是沒有必要就是無效。在產能擴增效率為中等程度，延遲策略可阻止高成本廠商研發新技術，且是可信賴的威脅。廠商的技術差距越大，採延遲策略的機會越大。

In some industries, the size of the main raw material used in each new generation of production line is much larger than that used in the previous generation. The main material also is more fully utilized. Therefore the output of each new generation increases dramatically, and its average variable cost decreases significantly. However, equipment users may have to play a main role in developing the new technology. When the expense of R&D and physical investment are financed mainly from a firm’s profit, a low-cost firm can strategically raise capacity utilization rate and force its rivals to give up initiating the developing process. The first question is whether low-cost firm can successfully deter high-cost firm from advancing to the new generation? Second, is it rational for the low-cost firm to adopt such a deterrence strategy? The findings of this paper are: when the capacity enlargement efficiency is large or small, the deterrence strategy would be unnecessary and ineffective respectively. When the capacity enlargement efficiency falls at a medium level, the deterrence strategy is both credible and effective in deterring the high-cost firm from developing new technology. The larger the cost difference between firms, the more likely it is that the low-cost firm will adopt deterrence strategy.