Competitive forbearance: the content, the process, and the outcomes of purposefully not acting

Strategy research has predominantly focused on how firms act and has mainly ignored competitive forbearance: decisions to not act despite a possibility or even a temptation to do so. Competitive forbearance occurs when managers are aware of an opportunity to act, capable of acting, but purposefully choose not to act. In this paper, we develop a theoretical framework for studying competitive forbearance. We first define the concept of competitive forbearance and explain the cognitive process that leads to forbearance. Additionally, we empirically demonstrate that competitive forbearances and acts are driven by different reasons, which suggests that acts and forbearances are qualitatively distinct and complementary in a strategist's competitive repertoire. Finally, we show the implications of competitive forbearance for competitive dynamics research by proposing novel propositions about competitive behavior of firms. We examine competitive forbearance in a basketball coaching setting using an inductive, qualitative research of 841 decisions that basketball coaches have made during 15 basketball games.