To attack or not attack? The role of relative status, awareness, and motivation

Competitive dynamics research has often used the AMC framework—awareness, motivation, and capability—to explain how different factors influence the identification of specific other firms as competitors and the likelihood of future competitive interactions with them. However, this stream of research has largely overlooked the role of social evaluations in determining which firms are targeted. We study how a specific form of social evaluation—relative status—impacts the firm's awareness of specific competitors and the motivation to attack them. Whereas prior research has principally viewed the AMC framework as a Gestalt-like black box, our research setting enabled us to measure and explore the interrelationships that occur within the AMC framework. We pose our theory as competing logics: Awareness mediates the relationship between relative status and motivation versus relative status moderates the relationship between awareness and motivation. We tested these competing arguments using a unique dataset of food trucks in a mid-sized city in the U.S. We find that low-status firms exhibit a strong motivation to attack higher-status competitors primarily due to the greater attention the high-status firms garner. Further, we find no support for a moderation effect. Our study helps arrive at a better understand the interplay between awareness and motivation in the context of social evaluations.