Ranking Strategy: How Organizations Respond to The New Competitive Battlefields

The thesis that rankings do more than just make visible an organisation's position viz-a-viz a competitor, but stimulate new competitive rivalries, has provoked much interest. Yet, to date, we lack an understanding of how such competitive rivalries unfold at the level of organisational strategy. Put simply, if competition is played out in rankings, how does this change the way organisations strategise? We answer this question through an ethnographic study of how information technology organisations engage with rankings. The strategic responses we observed included 'leapfrogging a rival', 'de-positioning a competitor', 'owning a market', and 'encouraging a break-out', which together are theorised as 'ranking strategy'. This novel conceptualisation extends understanding of the organisational response to rankings by showing how common reactions like gaming are only the tip of the iceberg of a broader array of strategic responses. Our study also throws light on the different ways a ranking can pattern competitive rivalries, including creating more episodic forms of rivalry.