Identify, verify, measure and test the characteristics of coopetition relationships and their impact on the efficiency of cooperating competitors
Project manager: dr hab. Patrycja Klimas, prof. WUEB
In strategic management, researchers focus on explaining the reasons for companies’ competitive advantages. We are still looking for answers to the question of what influences the success of companies, their long-term agility, not only the financial one. This project is located in the area of coopetition, one of the fastest growing strategic management concepts seeking answers to questions about the success of companies in the cooperation of competitors.
Coopetition is the phenomenon of simultaneous cooperation and competition. Co-opetitors are organizations that, at the same time, cooperate with each other in some areas (e.g., work on a new technology) and compete in others (e.g., “fight” for a customer). Coopetition is a complex phenomenon (competition and cooperation overlap), unpredictable (full of paradoxes and constant tensions between coopetitors), dynamic (variable over time as the behavior of coopetitors changes), but above all, a phenomenon very effectively leading to the acceleration of innovation processes, intensification of organizational development, and thus to the creation of a new or leapfrogging of existing competitive advantages.
The multidimensional, financially and temporally measurable benefits of coopetition are making it an increasingly popular choice as a leading strategy for organizational development. Its spread is also driven by external conditions, related to rising R&D costs, technological acceleration, increasing focus on radical and disruptive innovations, increasing complexity and interdisciplinarity of products, growing and increasingly individualized customer needs. In essence, the hyperdynamics, complexity, and volatility of today’s economic world explain the increasing willingness and even need of today’s organizations to engage in various types of interaction. Increasingly, a very high level of dynamics or complexity results in a competitor being the best (or maybe the only?) partner to work with. A competitor facing the same strategic difficulties, developing in the same technological direction, in parallel seeking the same type of innovation, trying to meet the same
current and future needs of the same customer.
The goal of the project is to identify the characteristics of cooperative relationships with competitors, as well as to recognize the phases in which they develop. The subject of the study was also made the influence of the characteristics of the coopetition relationship on – financial and non-financial – efficiency of cooperating competitors. The research will be conducted on 1,200 industrial companies divided into high-tech, medium high-tech, medium low-tech and low-tech. The proposed research is mixed in nature – it combines elements of exploration and explanation of phenomena and assumes the use of complementary qualitative and quantitative research methods and techniques.
The novelty, originality and the need to undertake the research included in the project is founded on four pillars. First, lack of knowledge. Second, the scarcity of quantitative research, let alone mixed-methods research. Third, a general paucity of explanatory research based on advanced modeling methods. Fourth, the validity and timeliness of the research topic for business practice. Coopetition has been the subject of inquiry since the mid-1990s. century, although cognitive attention to date has focused mainly on the causes (motives) of coopetition and its effects, with effects mainly in the spheres of innovation and profitability. There is a lack of knowledge in the literature about coopetition per se, including knowledge about the characteristics of this type of relationship, or the course of its life cycle, as well as its impact on various outcomes. The project will fill this cognitive gap.
Research on coopetition is being conducted extensively, albeit of a severely limited nature. Qualitative research dominates the research output. At the same time, quantitative research, which remains in opposition, is narrowed down to single industries or to a specific type of enterprise (mainly large and high-tech). There is a lack of research results in the body of work that allows generalized conclusions to be drawn, and therefore even a piecemeal generalization. The project will fill this empirical gap.
The scarcity of quantitative studies of co-petition is evident in the paucity of studies that use advanced (that give more reliable and credible results) analytical methods. In the empirical body of work, it is difficult to find papers based on multivariate moderated regressions, much less models resulting from structural modeling. The project will fill this methodological gap.
Co-opetition is also popularizing among management practitioners. Previous research indicates to managers that maintaining and favorably exploiting coopetitive relationships requires constantly combating tensions and properly managing such unique relationships. Unfortunately, the literature does not provide recommendations on how to shape these relationships, either in terms of the intentional shaping of their characteristics, or their natural (or perhaps intentional?) variability over their life cycle, as well as the importance of the characteristics in question for the multidimensional effects of coopetition. The project will fill this management gap.
Funding organization:
National Science Center
Programme:
OPUS 20
Project duration:
06/07/2021 – 05/07/2024
Funding amount:
569 069 PLN
Project status:
Project in progress
