The organizational advantage of nations: An ecological perspective on the evolution of the motorcycle industry in Belgium, Italy and Japan, 1894-1993

Why do nations succeed in particular industries? Why do certain industries prosper in one country, but languish in others? Several recent attempts to address these core questions in the study of geography and strategy are based on the notion of domestic rivalry as the essence of the persistence of competitive advantage of nations. Starting from the claim that rivalry between countries typically implies competition among organizational populations across national boundaries, in this paper we make a first attempt to develop empirical connections between a central problem in international business and the conceptual and analytical categories of corporate demography. Relying on information on the founding of 719 independent motorcycle producers operating in Belgium, Italy and Japan during the period 1898-1993, we build on recent results in organizational ecology to link a selected number of essential but underspecified aspects in current theories of international business to observable patterns of competition within and among organizational populations. The results of the analysis invite a new interpretation of the evolutionary forces that shape the competitive advantage of nations.