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The dark side of coopetition: when collaborating with competitors is harmful for company performance

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journal contribution
posted on 2019-09-05, 08:13 authored by Jim Crick
Purpose – Coopetition is the interplay between cooperation and competition, involving organisations sharing resources and capabilities with rival entities. Earlier work has suggested that coopetition has a linear (positive) relationship with company performance, with scarce considerations towards whether this link could have a diminishing-returns effect. Thus, this paper examines the non-linear (quadratic) relationships between coopetition and three performance outcomes. Using resource-based theory and the relational view, this study is designed to evaluate the dark-side of coopetition, in terms of identifying situations when such activities can be harmful for company performance.
Design/methodology/approach – Survey data were collected from a sample of 101 vineyards and wineries in New Zealand. After purifying the measures through a series of multivariate statistical techniques, the research hypotheses and control paths were tested through hierarchical regression. Furthermore, the statistical data passed all major assessments of reliability and validity (including common method variance).
Findings – Coopetition was found to have non-linear (quadratic) relationships with customer satisfaction performance, market performance, and financial performance. These results indicate that while coopetition provides organisations with new resources, capabilities, and opportunities, there are some dark-sides of coopetition activities. With “too little” coopetition, firms might struggle to survive within their markets, with an insufficient volume of resources and capabilities. With “too much” coopetition, companies could experience increased tensions, potentially lose intellectual property, and dilute their competitive advantages. Such negative outcomes could harm their performance in several capacities.
Practical implications – Firms should appreciate that coopetition is a competitive strategy. In other words, regardless of how much collaboration occurs, coopetition partners are still competing entities. It is recommended that organisations should strive to engage in an “optimal-level” of coopetition, as “too little” or “too much” of such strategies can be harmful for various types of company performance. To mitigate some of the dark-sides of coopetition, businesses should attempt to utilise all the benefits of collaborating with competitors (i.e., accessing new resources, capabilities, and opportunities), but at the same time, not become dependent on rivals’ assets.
Originality/value – This current article develops and tests a framework examining the non-linear (quadratic) linkages between coopetition and multiple assessments of company performance. It highlights the benefits and drawbacks of businesses sharing resources and capabilities with their competitors. Contrary to prior studies in the business-to-business marketing literature, the results signify that firms need to engage in an “optimal-level” of coopetition to minimise certain dark-sides, such as reduced company performance. After providing some practitioner implications, this paper ends with a series of limitations and avenues for future research.

History

School

  • Business and Economics

Department

  • Business

Published in

Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing

Volume

35

Issue

2

Pages

318 - 337

Publisher

Emerald Publishing Limited

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Rights holder

© Emerald Publishing Limited

Publisher statement

This paper was accepted for publication in the journal Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing and the definitive published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1108/JBIM-01-2019-0057.

Acceptance date

2019-09-03

Publication date

2019-09-30

Copyright date

2019

ISSN

0885-8624

Language

  • en

Depositor

Dr James M. Crick

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