The theory of strategic balance argues that organizations that are neither too similar to nor too distinct from their rivals will be best positioned to meet competing demands for legitimacy and competition. This is because a similar identity to other organizations signals conformity, thus generating legitimacy, while adopting a distinctive identity through differentiation provides competitive advantage. Recent studies have noted that various combinations of conformity and differentiation tactics can achieve “optimal distinctiveness”, which, depending on the particular competitive landscape, may be low, moderate, or high. This study disentangles the effect of distinctiveness in a landscape from the effects of conformity to and differentiation from ancestral identities that serve as templates for new identities. Taking a configurational approach, we explore whether distinctiveness, proximity to an ancestral identity, hybridization of multiple ancestral identities, vertical and horizontal differentiation are necessary or sufficient, alone or in combination, to generate appeal for new identities.

战略平衡理论认为，与其竞争对手没有太大相似或不同的组织将最有能力满足合法性和竞争的竞争要求。这是因为与其他组织相似的身份表明了合规性，从而产生了合法性，同时通过差异化采用了独特的身份提供了竞争优势。最近的研究表明，整合策略和差异化策略的各种组合可以实现“最佳区别”，这取决于特定的竞争格局，可能是低，中或高。这项研究将景观独特性的影响与作为新身份模板的祖先身份的整合和分化的影响区分开来。采用配置方法