Biform Games

Both noncooperative and cooperative game theory have been applied to business strategy. We propose a hybrid noncooperative-cooperative game model, which we call a biform game. This is designed to formalize the notion of business strategy as making moves to try to shape the competitive environment in a favorable way. (The noncooperative component of a biform game models the strategic moves. The cooperative component models the resulting competitive environment.) We give biform models of various well-known business strategies. We prove general results on when a business strategy, modelled as a biform game, will be efficient. ∗ Bob Aumann, Pierpaolo Battigalli, David Collis, Karen Feng, Amanda Friedenberg, Rena Henderson, John Hillas, Jerry Keisler, Vijay Krishna, Andreu Mas-Colell, Barry Nalebuff, John Sutton, and many participants at seminar presentations of this work provided important input. We are especially indebted to Louis Makowski and Joe Ostroy for extensive discussions, and...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2007
• Where: MANSCI
• Authors: Adam Brandenburger, Harborne Stuart
• Keywords: Biform Game, Business Strategy, Competitive Environment, MANSCI 2007