Influence Capacity at the Firm Level: Three-Axis Portability and Competitive Decline

Abstract

This paper proposes a firm-level theory of influence capacity organized around productive capacity pi_F, mobilizable surplus mu_F, and network position nu_F. The central portability hypothesis is that ecosystem position adds predictive content for pricing power, strategic autonomy, and business-line survival after production, technology, cash, and short-horizon reallocation are controlled. The paper operationalizes pi_F through production and complex-product capability, mu_F through liquid resources and reallocation speed, and nu_F through ecosystem control, switching costs, standards, and supplier or customer chokepoints. Three contemporary dyads (Apple-Samsung, Microsoft-Google, and TSMC-Intel) show how the decomposition changes comparisons that would otherwise rely on revenue or balance-sheet scale. Three historical declines involving BlackBerry, Nokia, and Kodak illustrate the predicted vulnerability of firms whose network position erodes while productive and financial resources remain positive. The paper's contribution is a portable measurement framework, a multiplicative baseline, and four explicit falsification criteria for the portability claim. The six cases are exploratory: their axes are researcher-coded, the observations are selected, and they cannot identify firm-level exponents. Accordingly, no exponent estimator is fitted to these cases. The vector (0.35,0.20,0.45) is retained as a locked directional test target generated by a disclosed zero-sum shift from a national candidate. The resulting codebook and prospective target support subsequent firm-level tests. Exploratory firm-level supplementary study for https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20036716. The six selected cases are illustrations; the directional weight vector is a prospective target, not an estimated result.