Adapting the Five Forces Framework for regulated and monopoly-influenced industries
Abstract: The Five Forces Framework is a tool developed by Michael Porter to analyze competitive dynamics in industries. Earlier research suggests that it is less suitable to analyze industries characterized by limited competition, regulatory dominance, and public accountability. In response to this shortcoming, we adapt the framework to the context of regulated and monopoly-influenced industries. Our adapted framework captures the unique characteristics of these industries better by studying not only the market forces of the original framework but also the non-market forces of regulators, governmental policymakers, society, and rival claimants to economic surplus. The study adopts a case study methodology to analyze the case of the electricity transmission industry, a regulated and monopoly-influenced industry. With the help of our adapted framework, we illustrate the dynamics of competitive interactions in an industry where strategic interaction with non-market forces is critical, but direct market competition is minimal. The adaptation of the Five Forces Framework is the theoretical contribution of this study, and we recommend applying it to analyze regulated and monopoly-influenced industries in future research.
Keywords: Five Forces Framework, industry analysis, electricity transmission industry, monopoly-influenced industries, regulated industries
Authors:
Dubravko Sabolić, corresponding author, University of Zagreb, Croatia, dubravko.sabolic@hops.hr
Murat Akpinar, Jamk University of Applied Sciences, School of Business, Rajakatu 35, 40200, Jyväskylä, Finland
1. Introduction
The Five Forces Framework is a well-known tool developed for industry analysis (see Porter, 1980, 2008). Despite that, its application to regulated and monopoly-influenced industries has been challenging as these industries lack competitors, substitutes, and new entrants in their markets (McNutt, 1999). These industries usually lack market competition, and they are subject to pressures from the non-market environment, e.g., from regulators, policymakers, and society (Vining, 2011).
The monopoly firm must negotiate and interact with its non-market stakeholders to align its organizational goals with regulatory, governmental, and societal demands (Qiu et al., 2018; Tipurić, 2022). As a result, we can argue that there is a kind of non-market competition that impacts the monopolistic firm’s profitability. A good example of this is the case of electricity transmission system operators (TSOs), monopoly firms under pressure from non-market stakeholders related to green energy initiatives and infrastructure sustainability (Ivanković et al., 2023).
There is a need to conceptualize non-market stakeholders as part of the industry’s ecosystem and incorporate non-market forces into the Five Forces Framework (Ellis, 2020; Isabelle et al., 2020; Karahan et al., 2025; Qiu et al., 2018; Sutherland, 2014). Addressing this need, we integrate four non-market forces into the Five Forces Framework to offer a more accurate lens for understanding competitive dynamics in regulated and monopoly-influenced industries. Our framework contributes in general to strategic management literature that focuses on industry analysis, and more specifically, to the Five Forces Framework (see Baxter, 2019; Hoffman & Kirk, 2013).
The context of the case study, where we apply our adapted framework, is the European electricity transmission industry, a regulated and monopoly-influenced industry. We specifically focus on TSOs, which manage high-voltage electricity networks and transmit electricity to distribution systems and industrial users (Kirschen & Strbac, 2004; Stoft, 2002). Our case firm is HOPS, the Croatian Transmission System Operator, where one of the authors has long-standing experience attending high-level strategic meetings.
TSOs worldwide are natural monopolies, i.e., they lack competitors in their core market, and are subject to a high degree of regulation. As a result, it may be assumed that this provides them with relatively good rates of return, and long-term strategic considerations are of limited relevance to them. However, the author at the Croatian TSO observed that senior management continuously engages in discussions of strategic risks and challenges that arise not from the firm’s core activities but from the complex societal and institutional environment comprising the formal regulatory system, the national and supranational – in the European Union (EU) – policy-makers, the broader society, and a set of entities and stakeholders, referred to here as rival claimants, who identify opportunities to generate economic benefits for themselves within the industry. This observation further justifies the need to adapt the Five Forces Framework to analyze regulated and monopoly-influenced industries.
The rest of the paper is organized into four sections. The second section reviews the literature on the Five Forces Framework and develops our adapted framework. The third section describes the applied methodology, and the fourth section presents the illustrative case study. Finally, the paper ends with a discussion on findings in section five.
2. Literature review
2.1 The Five Forces Framework – A tool for industry analysis
Firms should analyze their industry to determine a strategic position in the market that will allow them to gain a competitive advantage (Porter, 1980). The Five Forces Framework is a tool used for this purpose that studies the intensity of rivalry, the bargaining power of suppliers, the bargaining power of buyers, the threat of new entrants, and the threat of substitutes in an industry (Porter, 1980, 2008). This framework has been applied widely in industries, such as the railway industry (Wellner & Lakotta, 2020) and the air cargo industry (Baxter, 2019).
The framework has been subject to criticisms for its assumption of stable market conditions (Grundy, 2006; Ural, 2014) and its focus on competitive rivalry as a zero-sum game, neglecting the role of cooperative strategies (Nguyen, 2015). It has also been criticized for its limitations to account for institutional challenges faced in emerging markets (Hashlamoun et al., 2021) and in culturally distinct markets (Wang & Chang, 2009). Moreover, regulated industries are subject to the influence of regulations and governmental policies, which are not studied by the framework (Ellis, 2020; Isabelle et al., 2020; Karahan et al., 2025; Qiu et al., 2018; Sutherland, 2014). These criticisms call for an adaptation of the Five Forces Framework to these contexts.
In response to this call, there have been attempts to integrate institutional forces, such as regulation and government policy, as additional forces into the Five Forces Framework (see Ivanković et al., 2023; Karahan et al., 2025; Narayanan & Fahey, 2005; Sabolić & Išić, 2022; Spencer et al., 2005).
2.2 The Five Forces Framework and the competition law
A study on competition necessitates that we consider limitations set by the competition law (Fox & Crane, 2017). Cooperation among competitors can be subject to antitrust scrutiny if there are concerns of market concentration or anti-competitive behavior (Tukun & Anchustegui, 2024). As such, the Five Forces Framework and the competition law complement each other in that while the Five Forces Framework analyzes how firms can mitigate competitive pressures to strengthen their market positions, the competition law aims to maintain the level of competition in the industry.
There are two types of regulators, namely antitrust regulators and industry regulators. Whereas antitrust regulators handle specific instances of competition violations, industry regulators engage more frequently with businesses on issues ranging from setting tariff structures to approving investment plans (Kahn, 1988). For example, in the electricity transmission industry, the EU Electricity Directive 2019/944 authorizes them to oversee TSOs’ decisions on grid access, tariff structures, and the integration of RES (Papouis et al., 2023). Since regulators are influential stakeholders, it would make sense to integrate them into the Five Forces Framework (Monteiro, 2017).
Regulatory interventions exhibit characteristics of strategic game-playing in that regulators’ moves are in response to firms’ strategic actions (Baldwin et al., 2011). Vice versa, firms also closely observe regulators’ moves and adapt their strategies to them (Akpinar, 2007; Dixit & Nalebuff, 1991). They can strategically delay compliance, lobby for favorable adjustments, or adapt their operations to align with a new regulation (Akpinar, 2009).
The enforcement of the competition law involves close collaboration between regulators and related stakeholders, e.g., the government, in placing strategic pressures on firms (Yoshizawa, 2024). In addition to regulation, the government also affects firms’ behaviors through its national policies, e.g., China’s Belt and Road Initiative (see Akpinar & McCaleb, 2024), as well as regional policies, e.g., public procurement policies and infrastructure investment policies (see Hall & Foxon, 2014). Hence, both regulators and the government significantly influence strategic conditions in an industry (Akpinar, 2007).
Pressure groups, industry associations, and the public also influence firms’ strategic decisions (Freeman, 1984). Therefore, these stakeholders should also be considered for industry analysis.
2.3 Adapting the Five Forces Framework for regulated and monopoly-influenced industries
The original Five Forces Framework’s study of five market forces leaves the strategic influences of stakeholders from the non-market environment underexplored. These stakeholders, referred to as side-parties hereafter, can exert significant influence.
Side-parties include regulators, the government, non-governmental organizations, pressure groups, and local communities. Their influence is strong in industries producing public goods as well as those having significant social and environmental outcomes. In such cases, firms need to balance their economic objectives with broader social and environmental demands (Sutherland, 2014; Wang & Chang, 2009).
In our adapted framework, we consider the industry broadly as an economic and institutional ecosystem. In this ecosystem, decisions of side-parties systematically shape incentives, constraints, and the distribution of economic surplus. We use the term monopoly-influenced to describe an industry whose strategic environment is shaped by actors holding monopolistic positions. This is different than a monopolistic industry. For example, renewable electricity generation is not itself monopolistic. However, it is strongly influenced by monopolistic TSOs. TSOs’ network access decisions, technical constraints, and regulatory obligations affect RES investment timing and project viability. In addition, this industry is significantly influenced by side-parties.
Regulations and governmental policies can trigger structural changes in the industry (Akpinar, 2007), and public backlash can disrupt demand (Black, 2001). Since the original Five Forces Framework does not account for these, its analytical scope remains limited in industries where side-parties exercise significant influence. Therefore, we propose adapting the Five Forces framework in the following ways:
- Adding regulatory forces, governmental policy forces, societal forces, and rival claimants to economic surplus to reflect how regulatory oversight, the government’s policy decisions, public pressure, and opportunistic behaviors of rival claimants shape competitive dynamics in the industry (see Figure 1).
- Recognizing that the interactions between firms and side-parties are two-way, i.e., firms also actively attempt to influence side-parties through lobbying, policy negotiations, and compliance strategies.
In the adapted Five Forces Framework, the original five forces remain the analytical core of industry analysis, but they are embedded within a broader institutional environment (see Figure 1). Regulatory forces, governmental policy forces, societal forces, and rival claimants to economic surplus influence how competitors, suppliers, buyers, new entrants, and substitutes operate. These non-market forces do not replace the market forces but pre-structure and constrain them. Thus, the adapted framework preserves the logic of the original framework. By introducing non-market forces into the framework, we capture more precisely the complexity of non-market stakeholders influencing competitive dynamics in regulated and monopoly-influenced industries. As such, the inclusion of these forces does not dilute the framework’s focus but rather expands its applicability.
Figure 1. An adapted Five Forces Framework for regulated and monopoly-influenced industries. Adapted from Porter (1980, 2008).
The additional non-market forces do not arise solely from an industry’s being regulated or monopoly-influenced. Rather, they emerge when the economic surplus is persistently shaped, allocated, or contested through institutional, political, or societal mechanisms rather than through market rivalry alone. Although regulated and monopoly-influenced industries represent a suitable context for this condition, these forces may also emerge in regulated but competitive industries, as well as in competitive industries strongly influenced by monopolistic infrastructure providers.
Monopolistic firms, such as TSOs examined in the case study, may be strategically constrained and shaped by these forces. Pressures originating from regulators, policymakers, societal actors, and other ecosystem participants may pose significant long-term risks to organizational performance and sustainability. Moreover, we also acknowledge that firms producing multiple products/services can be simultaneously subject to different market and non-market forces in each product/service category. For example, TSOs deliver four distinct yet complementary products/services (see section 4.2). In delivering each product/service, the TSO is exposed to a partially different set of market and non-market forces. To tackle this kind of situation, we suggest mapping all forces in a multi-layered form by replicating the adapted Five Forces Framework in layers for each product/service category (see Figure 2).
Figure 2. A multi-layered illustration of the adapted framework for multi-product or multi-service firms.
3. Methodology
In this research, we adopted an abductive approach and applied the case study research strategy to illustrate the application of our adapted Five Forces Framework (see Figure 1). Case studies are well-suited to produce holistic knowledge by relating real-life observations to abstract concepts (Alasuutari, 1995). Based on this argument, we studied the case of the Croatian TSO in its natural context critically and objectively with evidence from multiple sources (Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2008). Case studies aim for a detailed investigation of complex social phenomena; hence, findings are limited to the context (Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 2003). We acknowledge this limitation and do not aim for a generalization beyond the scope of regulated and monopoly-influenced industries.
The case company is HOPS, the Croatian TSO, which is the sole electricity transmission system operator and the owner of the entire electricity transmission network in Croatia (see HOPS, n.d.). HOPS is responsible for the transmission of electricity through an ultra-high- and high-voltage network operating at nominal voltage levels of 400, 220, and 110 kilovolts, as well as for managing the overall operation of the Croatian power system and ensuring cross-border electricity exchanges with neighboring systems in Slovenia, Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia (HOPS, n.d.). The case was selected for two reasons: it suits well to the context of a regulated and monopoly-influenced industry, and we had exclusive insights into the case thanks to one of the authors’ being affiliated with it for 20 years.
Data was collected and triangulated from multiple reliable primary and secondary sources and analyzed in the light of the adapted Five Forces Framework (see Figure 1). Primary data relied on one of the authors’ own observations during his 20 years of affiliation at the Croatian TSO. Secondary data was from the firm’s web pages, its internal documents, and publicly available sources about the European and Croatian electricity markets and the regulations governing them.
The analysis focused on illustrating the roles of the four non-market forces on competitive dynamics in the industry. Observations of the author were transcribed as field notes, and all textual data were reduced and then organized with the aid of codes related to the four non-market forces in the adapted Five Forces Framework. This contributed to the internal validity of the research (Yin 2003). Moreover, data from multiple reliable sources allowed us to increase reliability (Yin, 2003).
We pursued ethical conduct throughout the research process. All data were treated confidentially and stored securely. We utilized artificial intelligence to organize the literature and improve the language of the manuscript.
4. Case study
4.1 The industrial environment of TSOs
TSOs transmit energy from large-scale generation facilities to distribution systems and industrial users (Kirschen & Strbac, 2004; Stoft, 2002). The industrial environment of TSOs comprises a network of stakeholders with diverse objectives in both the market environment and the non-market environment. These include distribution system operators, RES developers and investors, other TSOs, generators, retailers, aggregators, critical equipment suppliers, construction firms, regulatory authorities, public institutions, consultants, advocacy groups, non-governmental organizations, and local communities, which can affect regulatory priority and project approvals.
Electricity as a commodity is characterized by its non-storability in electrical form. Temporary storage is possible only through conversion into other forms of energy and subsequent reconversion back into electricity. Because a constant nominal frequency of 50 Hertz must be maintained throughout the interconnected power system, it is necessary at every moment to ensure that the energy injected into the transmission network by generators equals the energy collectively withdrawn by consumers. This task is complicated because even in a small market like Croatia, there are many independent traders. TSOs need contractual safeguards to make sure that electricity traders meet their purchase and sales obligations.
Despite being monopolies, TSOs face strategic challenges from side-parties. For example, the EU Electricity Market Directive mandates the integration of RES and the maintenance of system stability in the EU (EU, 2019). This requires TSOs to invest in grid expansion and modernization. The construction of a new transmission line can face opposition from local communities, challenging TSOs to address competing stakeholder interests.
The integration of RES into the grid also creates operational challenges as TSOs need to manage the system balance. To achieve this, they buy extra services, such as frequency and voltage control, from external suppliers (Ivanković et al., 2023; Sabolić & Išić, 2022). TSOs also face pressures to adapt to a fully decarbonized energy system, as mandated by the EU 2050 policy (European Commission, 2025). These examples illustrate how side-parties can create forces that influence the strategies of TSOs.
4.2 Products/services of TSOs
TSOs have four products/services. They are the transmission of electricity, performing system services, market balancing, and connecting new network users to the transmission grid.
The first product/service is the transmission of electricity. Tasks of this product/service includeoperating, maintaining, refurbishing, and upgrading the transmission grid. This is a crucial product/service as the grid is the key asset in this industry, and its reliability standards are high to minimize connectivity disruptions.
The second product/service is performing system services. This involves planning and monitoring the grid’s performance in real time, as well as maintenance and system restoration in case of failures and disturbances. To deliver this product/service, TSOs need to procure frequency control service, voltage and reactive power control service, black start service, and island operation service from external suppliers.
The third product/service is market balancing. This product/service aims to ensure that all electricity traders maintain balanced portfolios, i.e., balance their purchase and sales quantities. If they fail to do this, TSOs intervene to settle the imbalance, imposing significantly higher charges than the prevailing market price.
Finally, the fourth product/service is connecting new network users to the transmission grid: To connect new network users to the transmission grid, TSOs require significant network upgrades, involving technical limitations, financial burdens, and risks. Considering these challenges, especially the growing demand to connect RES to the grid, has caused strategic pressures for TSOs.
Hence, every TSO is a multi-product or multi-service firm with four products/services. In our multi-layered, adapted Five Forces Framework (see Figure 2), each layer corresponds to a specific product/service of the TSO. Each product/service produces ”values”, which various actors in the industry may perceive as economically valuable. As a result, the “values” give rise to a matrix of interests and, consequently, to a corresponding set of actors, i.e., a distinct strategic arena, seeking to appropriate the “values”. We call these actors rival claimants rather than competitors because they do not directly compete with TSOs in the traditional way. Actors in a specific strategic arena, including the TSO itself, engage in continuous strategic interaction, seeking to outmaneuver one another to appropriate part of the “value” created by a product/service of the TSO – see Ivanković et al. (2023) and Sabolić and Išić (2022) for the “values” created in each product/service of the TSO and their corresponding strategic arenas.
4.3 An illustration of the new forces of the adapted Five Forces Framework at work
Drawing on the case study of HOPS, the Croatian TSO, we illustrate how the new forces of the adapted Five Forces Framework, namely rival claimants of economic surplus, regulatory forces, governmental policy forces, and societal forces, work with an example of the TSO’s product/service of connecting new network users to the transmission grid.
Like many other TSOs, HOPS faces an exceptionally high number of requests for connecting new RES projects to the transmission grid (Sabolić & Išić, 2022). Mainly due to network constraints in regions that are climatically attractive for wind or solar generation, these requests cannot be accommodated in the near term. Moreover, since the total amount of requested connection capacity far exceeds the peak load of the Croatian power system, some of these projects will be economically unviable and therefore fail to secure financing. The challenge is that TSOs cannot know in advance which projects will fail and the sequence in which viable projects will materialize.
At early stages of project development, RES project developers, who are typically small private entrepreneurs with limited access to capital, need to prepare spatial planning documents for local or national authorities, make feasibility studies for grid connection, secure location and construction permits, and sign easement agreements or land acquisition contracts. These prove to be challenging given the uncertainties in RES projects.
Public policies on grid connection costs are neither fully articulated nor stable over time. As network expansion demands significant funding from TSOs and power plant investors, regulatory and policy ambiguities arising from organizational complexity, regulatory overload, and broader social tensions create a wide spectrum of financial risks.
When there are governmental policy signals for introducing a shallow grid connection, many early-stage project developers, who are rival claimants for economic surplus, organize into industry associations or pressure groups and lobby legislators, policymakers, and the public. They aim to influence public opinion, which is often rhetorically favorable to RES investments, with the expectation that a favorable regulatory shift could increase the value they will appropriate from the project.
Yet under conditions of frequent regulatory change, driven by political competition and the pursuit of electorally attractive outcomes, investment costs can only be reimbursed via the transmission tariff in shallow grid connections. This, in turn, generates the political problem of explaining to households and industry the reason behind the tariff increase.
Within this cacophony of public policy signals, regulatory uncertainty, public opinion, and industry lobbying, many project developers perceive an opportunity to secure grid connection agreements with the TSO as early as possible, regardless of the true economic potential of their projects. Doing so allows them to try to sell their projects to strategic investors ahead of competing developers. In this specific example, project developers act as rival claimants of an economic surplus created by the mere possession of a contracted right to grid connection.
Granting grid connection rights to project developers may cause financial risks for TSOs. To manage these risks, TSOs employ in-house legal teams, engage in regulatory and political lobbying, and develop alternative contracting strategies and tactical safeguards. In addition, the government’s decision to keep transmission tariffs stable can further erode the profitability of TSOs. These examples suggest that industry analysis should cover the broader regulatory, governmental, and societal environments that enable rival claimants to identify economic surplus worth contesting. Exposed to risks from their side-parties, TSOs are obliged to engage in strategic negotiations with them.
5. Discussion
5.1 Theoretical contribution
The Five Forces Framework (Porter, 1980, 2008) has been applied to many industries, including railways (Wellner & Lakotta, 2020), air cargo (Baxter, 2019), and natural cosmetics (Hashlamoun et al., 2021). It has been subject to criticism for its suitability to industries where regulation and governmental policy significantly impact competitive dynamics (Ellis, 2020; Qiu et al., 2018; Sutherland, 2014). These industries are often regulated and monopoly-influenced, e.g., electricity transmission, water utilities, and telecommunications.
In response to this criticism, we adapted the Five Forces Framework (Porter, 1980, 2008) by embedding the five market forces within the non-market forces of governmental policies, regulations, societal pressures, and rival claimants to economic surplus (see Figure 1). We agree with Karahan et al. (2025) that we need to consider non-market stakeholders as part of the industry’s ecosystem. We differ, however, in that Karahan et al. (2025) merely add regulatory and policy influences as a sixth force to the Five Forces Framework. In our adapted framework, the five market forces are embedded within four non-market forces (see Figure 1). In our opinion, this conceptualization suits better for understanding the nature of competition in regulated and monopoly-influenced industries, as exemplified by the case of the Croatian TSO.
The conceptual extension of the Five Forces Framework (Porter, 1980, 2008) by integrating four non-market forces for the context of regulated and monopoly-influenced industries constitutes the main theoretical contribution of our paper. In our opinion, studying the non-market environment is essential to capture the complexities of competition in such industries. This conceptual extension expands the application domain of the framework.
5.2 Practical implications
The case study of the Croatian TSO exemplifies the impact of non-market forces in a regulated and monopoly-influenced industry. This is further complicated by the fact that TSOs offer multiple products/services, each having its unique set of forces. To capture such complexity, we suggest that TSO managers study both the market forces and the non-market forces in our adapted framework, separately for each product/service they deliver. This will offer them more precise insights into how they can navigate their strategies.
5.3 Limitations and recommendations for future research
The first limitation of this research is that it is a single case study. This renders us cautious about making any generalizations beyond the scope of TSOs in the EU electricity transmission industry, a representative of regulated and monopoly-influenced industries.
The case focused on one product/service of TSOs and aimed only to illustrate the impact of the four non-market forces. Future research could conduct a full industry analysis, including the five market forces, for the same product/service as well as for the other three types of products/services of TSOs. Future research could also apply the adapted framework using case studies in other regulated and monopoly-influenced industries, such as water utilities, public transportation, and telecommunications. They could also study similar industries from outside of the EU. Comparative analyses could examine how variations in regulatory and governance structures influence the dynamics between market and non-market forces.
Future research could also empirically test our proposed adaptation to the Five Forces Framework by developing measures for the four non-market forces to understand their influences on industry outcomes.
The second limitation is that our study focused only on competitive dynamics. As suggested by Dulčić et al. (2012), the Five Forces Framework could be adapted to integrate collaborative forces into competitive forces, i.e., coopetition. Hence, future research could study possible collaboration among actors in the industry and extend the adapted framework accordingly. This would allow us to examine how regulated and monopoly-influenced industries generate systemic incentives for firms to compete and cooperate under the influences of market and non-market constraints.
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