On the coexistence of innovators and imitators

摘要

The article develops a model laying a foundation for the idea that the relationships between competitors in the knowledge diffusion market can be described by a Lotka-Volterra system. The model can accommodate both the scenario of prey-predator and that of competition between innovators and imitators. Analytic results and numerical simulations show that a stable coexistence equilibrium is feasible under both scenarios. The work also discusses the conditions under which these results are achievable. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.