The emergence of electronic commerce complexes raises important questions regarding competence building and leveraging, both for practitioners and strategy scholars. Competences of brick-and-mortar incumbents (large and mature players) are being challenged by new entrants' click-and-mortar or click-and-click business models. The implications of this challenge for the financial services industry - as for many other industries - are only starting to become clear. In this paper we contribute to these initial understandings by developing a conceptual framework that considers which strategies incumbents and new entrants might adopt to improve their competitiveness. We identify four relevant organizational types in the emerging on-line financial services complex. For each of these types we outline how ties to sponsoring organizations can be used as a buffer against environmental turbulence and as a bridge towards changing stakeholder perspectives.

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Erasmus Research Institute of Management
hdl.handle.net/1765/48
ERIM Report Series Research in Management
Erasmus Research Institute of Management

Hensmans, M., van den Bosch, F., & Volberda, H. (2000). New Entrants versus Incumbents in the Emerging On-Line Financial Services Complex (No. ERS-2000-41-STR). ERIM Report Series Research in Management. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/1765/48