Replication and Augmentation: A Reexamination of the Replication Dilemma

This paper argues that distinguishing between two fundamentally different activities within a replication effort - the replication of an established template and its augmentation (the addition of elements that are not part of the template) - may help reconcile existing disagreements and contradictions in the literature on the performance consequences of accurate replication and local adaptation. We advance a more nuanced view of the challenge of replication, away from the strict either/or replication dilemma implied by Winter and Szulanski (2001) and closer to that of a subtle optimization challenge where scarce attention is judiciously and dynamically allocated between the replication of an established template and its augmentation over time in order to enhance local performance. We develop corresponding theoretical propositions and subject them to an empirical examination using a proprietary dataset that documents replication and augmentation efforts in 2,025 units of a large, U.S.-based, non-food franc...