A review of coopetition and future research agenda

Abstract

Purpose This research aims to conduct a systematic review of the literature on coopetition to assess its impact on firm performance in various contexts. Design/methodology/approach A bibliometric analysis of 144 papers from 1999 to 2021 and analysis of literature under the premise of theory, context, characteristics and methodology using the Theory–Context–Characteristics–Methodology (TCCM) approach was conducted using Institute for Scientific Information Web of Sciences data on coopetition literature. Findings The study enlists the influential journals, evolutions and citations of the articles and particularly identifies six research streams under the domain of coopetition and additionally charts out the future research agenda. Practical implications The results highlighted in this study may be helpful for managers and practitioners to understand the dynamics of a strategic alliance with their competitor organizations. Moreover, managers may utilize the coopetition strategy to enhance customer value and leverage this relationship for more excellent firm performance. Furthermore, the results obtained through cluster analysis can be considered as a start point to develop frameworks for a business relationship with competitors. This study utilizes content analysis and bibliometric analysis to assess the diverse view and understand the development of the field that may help the researchers increase the rigor and transparency of reviewing the literature and answer various questions that may arise to assess competitors’ interorganizational relationships. Originality/value No systematic literature review has analyzed the literature on coopetition using the TCCM approach and identified various research streams under the perspective of different contextual settings.

Deceptive behaviour and coopetition: the role of heterogeneous absorptive capacities and product specialisation

“…From a methodological perspective, our research contributes to the strand of literature that examines coopetition from a game-theoretic perspective (Chen et al , 2019; Meena et al , 2022). Our theoretical analysis uncovers several interesting mechanisms and interactions that improve our understanding of the necessary balance between collaboration and competition in successful coopetitive activities.…”

“…We show that privately informed firms with superior absorptive capacities are more likely to offer alliances for the main purpose of accessing and exploiting the internal capabilities of the competitor rather than capitalising on the business opportunity that gives rise to the cooperation. These theoretical insights also allow us to shed light on the question of how smaller firms leverage coopetition while interacting with larger firms (Meena et al , 2022). We show that uninformed firms with limited absorptive capacities but highly specialised products (such that the degree of product similarities is low) are less likely to face the type of opportunistic behaviours previously described because, for these firms, even limited learning about the production process of their partners has a significant effect on the degree of competition in the product market.…”

Circular economy and sustainable development: a review and research agenda

“…In this systematic literature review, bibliometric analysis is used, followed by cluster formation using co-citation analysis. Bibliometric methods in systematic literature review assess the extant literature and remove researcher bias (Singh and Dhir, 2019;Meena et al, 2022;Zupic and Cater, 2015). This method of analysis provides insights into a large number of research articles.…”

Enemies to frenemies: coopetition between online and offline retailers amidst crises

“…Coopetition explains the "growing interorganisational cooperative relationships between competing firms" and more research is needed to further investigate it's "conceptualization and its strategic applicability, as well as its management in different settings" (Bouncken et al, 2015). A systematic literature review revealed six research themes: "coopetition leading to innovation performance," "knowledge sharing and organizational learning in coopetition," "tension and paradox as a challenge in coopetition," "the effect of coopetition on firms," "the impact of coopetition on the supply chain" and "determinants of coopetition" (Meena et al, 2022). Another systematic literature review by Bengtsson and Raza-Ullah (2016) opines that studies on coopetition can be categorised into two schools: "the Actor and the Activity Schools of Thought".…”

“…, 2015). A systematic literature review revealed six research themes: “coopetition leading to innovation performance,” “knowledge sharing and organizational learning in coopetition,” “tension and paradox as a challenge in coopetition,” “the effect of coopetition on firms,” “the impact of coopetition on the supply chain” and “determinants of coopetition” (Meena et al. , 2022).…”