Chapter 5: Conclusion
5.2 Limitations and Future Research
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Chapter 5: Conclusion
5.1 Summary
In order to make apps more competitive, it is important for app developers to have a wide understanding of what factors can bring apps advantages and what strategies can sustain apps’ competitive advantages. Therefore, we proposed two research questions:
(1) Do first-mover advantages exist in app development? and (2) If so, how can these advantages be sustained? For these questions, we intended to archive advantages and strategies that top apps may have through the literature review. Then we verified the advantages and strategies individually through expert opinions, case analysis, and a questionnaire. As a result, we found that apps enjoy advantages such as technological leadership, resource preemption, network externalities, pricing advantages, and switching costs of transporting data stored in apps. We also discovered that apps may sustain their competitive advantages through strategies such as updating regularly, improving their services by integrating with social networks, and establishing brand recognition through Facebook fan pages, Twitter, and blogs.
The practical implication of this study is to provide app developers with guidelines on the factors that give apps advantages and the strategies developers need to devise to keep their apps’ advantages. To increase apps' competitiveness and maintain their sustainability, it is necessary for app developers to recognize these factors. We looked at previous research devoted to factors that affect first movers' advantages, and we ascertained that the research only cast light on the use of physical resources. Therefore, the theoretical contributions of this study help explain how first movers' advantages work for app development and industries in which digitalized products are provided.
5.2 Limitations and Future Research
Although this study provides insight into how first-movers advantages work for app development and the factors that have the most influence on the advantages, there are still some limitations. First, because the number of apps with long-term advantages was not large, this study only analyzed apps in five categories that contained more than 10 apps with long-term advantages. Therefore, we recommend that future research should analyze apps in all categories. Second, this study only analyzed apps with long-term advantages, so we recommend that future research should analyze apps with medium-term and short-term advantages in order to compare and contrast apps
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enjoying different types of advantages. We hope that the findings of this study will provide a base for future study of first-mover advantages in app development.
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