Competitive Imitation, First-Mover Disadvantage, and Strategic Repositioning Among Nigerian Consumer Brands

This dissertation develops and tests a theoretical model of competitive imitation dynamics, first-mover disadvantage conditions, and strategic repositioning effectiveness among consumer brand firms in Nigeria. Competitive strategy theory has extensively theorized first-mover advantages, yet evidence for systematic first-mover disadvantages in high-imitation environments, characteristic of Nigeria's consumer market, has not been theoretically formalized. Competitive dynamics theory, resource-based view, and brand strategy theory provide the theoretical scaffolding. The research employs a mixed methods longitudinal design. A quantitative analysis of market entry timing, imitation intensity, and brand performance data from sixty Nigerian consumer brands across five product categories over ten years was combined with qualitative interviews of twenty brand strategy executives. Survival analysis, event history analysis, and regression with interaction terms were applied to the quantitative data. Findings reveal that first-mover disadvantage in the Nigerian consumer market is a theoretically distinct phenomenon from pioneer market disadvantage, characterized by the premium imitation paradox: first movers invest in market education while imitators capture market share without equivalent investment. Strategic repositioning effectiveness is significantly higher for first movers with strong emotional brand equity compared to those competing primarily on functional attributes. The dissertation makes original contributions to competitive strategy theory through the formalization of first-mover disadvantage conditions and the pioneer repositioning typology. Keywords: competitive imitation, first-mover disadvantage, strategic repositioning, consumer brands, Nigeria.