New markets and lines of business are being created at an ever-faster pace and the strategic literature has for long identified various advantages and disadvantages of a first-mover in the markets. In 21st century the so-called blue ocean strategy has guided numerous companies to coordinate and execute a new market space. Despite its remarkable publicity in business and academic fields the blue ocean strategy still appears quite an unstudied theory. The goal of this literature review is to identify and increase knowledge of first-mover advantages in the blue ocean strategy by answering the research question how the first-mover advantages studied in the strategic literature combine with the blue ocean strategy.

The differences between blue and red ocean strategy are discussed in chapter two. Furthermore, the blue ocean strategy’s most important concept of value innovation and the theoretical background of the blue ocean strategy are considered here. In chapter three the different schools of thought about the first-mover advantages and its comparable concepts such as entry barriers and isolating mechanisms are discussed. Chapter three also includes the disadvantages of being a first-mover. In results section, the first-mover advantages are classified into technology leadership, preemption of scarce assets and customer switching costs.

First-mover advantages in blue ocean strategy were analyzed in both theoretical and empirical studies in results section. As primary first mover advantages in blue ocean strategy were identified general assets due to learning and experience, economics of scale and the overall customer or brand loyalty. The results were tabulated and analyzed not only in terms of their validity but their overlap, too. First-mover advantages were found typically overlapped, which precluded to arrange those in order of importance. Also, the importance of technological leadership appeared minor. Due to exiguity of prior research and its partial superficiality, it was not possible to draw reliable conclusions for example when it comes to industry specific first-mover advantages.

The blue ocean strategy appears a rather criticized theory and therefore its further study could concentrate on empirical studies in business field. First-mover advantages again seem to have stabilized their position in strategic literature and their future research could concentrate on identifying new market opportunities and on how companies utilize their capabilities for market capture.