Конкуренция сегодня: процесс или результат?

CONTEMPORARY COMPETITION: PROCESS OR RESULT?
(World Economy and International Relations, 2021, vol. 65, no. 8, pp. 5-13)
Received 18.11.2020.
Nadezhda M. ROZANOVA ([e-mail]),
National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE), 20, Myasnitskaya Str., Moscow, 101000, 
Russian Federation.
Digital economy has significantly changed business reality. The radical transformations are ubiquitous. New 
patterns feature economic behaviour of market participants, their interactions, their business models and their market 
activities. What about competition? What forms of competitive conduct have lost importance in contemporary digital 
economy? And what are the newest strategies that enhance competitiveness of the firms? Which digital business 

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МИРОВАЯ ЭКОНОМИКА И МЕЖДУНАРОДНЫЕ ОТНОШЕНИЯ 2021 том 65 № 8
КОНКУРЕНЦИЯ СЕГОДНЯ: ПРОЦЕСС ИЛИ РЕзУЛЬТаТ?
practices could limit competition? And which of them could stimulate business rivalry? Digitalization has changed 
many, in not all, of our traditional conceptual visions in the area of competition, market, market power, relevant 
market actors. The nature of competition itself is under scrupulous investigation. What conclusions could we draw 
from current theoretical and empirical analyses of competition mechanism? First of all, we deal with new forms of 
competition. The old Schumpeterian question – whether competition is a creative innovative destruction or it leads 
only to unfair elimination of competitors from the market – has arisen again nowadays. Online competition has 
two radically different outcomes. On the one hand, lower transaction costs, more possibilities to compare prices and 
assortment, expanding markets beyond geographical limits, low entry barriers reinforce rivalry. On the other hand, 
online activity of the firms can mitigate competitive pressure though new forms of product differentiation and usage 
of phantom strategies, phantom products, phantom plans. In order to increase their overall competitiveness, firms 
have elaborated an O2O (online-to-offline) business model that is allowed to utilize virtual and actual activity at 
the same time. Restaurant business, cosmetic industry, taxi deals are examples of its successful implementation. Is 
more competition better for consumers? This concept has been considered doubtful. Digital competitive pressure has 
led to a novel format of product differentiation, that is, targeted product design. Unlike traditional view in line with 
Salop circular model, contemporary firms choose product strategies that target as little individuals as possible. The 
less the circle of potential clients is, the less their price elasticity would be, and the weaker price rivalry might become. 
Traditional concept views competition as a Markov stochastic process. Contemporary analyses demonstrate more 
complicated nature of competitive mechanism. Online and offline innovations transform competition into non-linear 
process with “humps and jumps”, the outcomes of which are not always in the interests of consumers’ welfare.
Keywords: competition, digitalization, competitive behaviour.
About author:
Nadezhda M. ROZANOVA, Dr. Sci. (Econ.), Professor.
DOI
: 10.20542/0131-2227-2021-65-8-5-13