Co-opetition for corporate social responsibility and sustainability: drivers and success factors

Abstract

Purpose Over the past few decades, many initiatives have been proposed in response to critical environmental challenges. However, in most cases, progress has been inadequate, raising questions as to why so few organisations have been successful in adopting effective sustainability measures. To address this dilemma, this paper aims to propose a range of sustainability-related co-opetitive strategies that are likely to be beneficial for organisations and society. The research findings provide support for co-opetitive approaches to corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability by providing evidence within an Australian context. Design/methodology/approach Research methods comprised 14 interviews with senior executives/managers from private and public sector organisations in Australia. Thematic content analysis indicates the presence of three types of drivers (commonality-driven, competition-driven and collaboration-driven) and three critical success factors (governance, public policy and relationship principles) related to co-opetition, CSR and sustainability. Findings Findings indicate that inter-firm co-opetition could be considered a viable strategy to improve performance across the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainability. Limitations concern the number of interviews conducted. Originality/value Based on the research findings, a typology was created that depicts different forms of co-opetition in CSR/sustainability and their relationships with firm performance. Moreover, the typology illustrates the importance of co‐opetitive partnerships in supporting effective responses to sustainability challenges and opportunities.

Scientometric Analysis of Research on Corporate Social Responsibility

“…With these premises, this paper identified analyses linked to the planning, strategy, design, and organisational structure that lay the foundations for business in a socially responsible context [12,37,38,[41][42][43]58,59]; those that provide critical guidelines for the management of the various stakeholders [33,35,36,[60][61][62][63][64]; those that seek to measure, control, and report on responsible management [6,14,17,42,[65][66][67]; CSR and performance management research [18,20,21,23,25,48,68]; and, finally, those that highlight strategic communication and transparency in organisational management as drivers of social responsibility [29][30][31]69,70]. CSR is being linked to all areas of management and it seems to require a systematisation of the way it is understood and applied.…”

Cross-sector dialogue for sustainability: to partner or not to partner?

“…This boundary work particularly leverages the social capital of "sustainability envoys" to support the female workers in the factories and in their communities. Kumar et al (2021) investigate a range of Australian public and private sector coopetitive strategies, used to bring together competing firms as collaborators, to improve performance across economic, social and environmental sustainability. In acknowledging the risk and tensions inherent in competitive relationships, the study investigates similar and different motives and drivers of co-opetitive strategies, as well as outcomes from the coopetitive initiatives.…”

“…In several of the articles and in line with previous studies (Henry et al, 2020;Sharma and Bansal, 2017;Stadtler, 2018), it has alluded that these hybrid forms of collaboration involve important tensions. Kumar et al (2021) note that co-opetition implies competitive tensions, which need to be managed. Ryan and Hauser (2021) reflect on the plasticity of the notion of partnership in the university context and observe that this makes it possible to add the label of "partnerships" in different forms of cooperation, some of which may not be very well aligned or very friendly.…”

“…There is a trend to tie the discussion of partnerships to questions of resources and resource complementarity, sometimes in explicit reference to the "resource-based view" of strategy. This trend is particularly visible in relation to coopetition (Kumar et al, 2021), the LA21-related partnerships (Ordonez-Ponce et al, 2021) and the central issue of resource complementarity in the Chinese partnerships (Yin, 2021). We would suggest that especially in relation to partnerships that aim for sustainability outcomes, it would be important to go beyond the resource-based view and beyond costbenefit analyzes and instead to think of the value derived from partnerships as something that would be more de-centered from the partners and clearly aimed FOR sustainability.…”

Co-opetition, corporate responsibility and sustainability: why multi-dimensional constructs matter

“…CRS) activities (Christ et al, 2017;Manzhynski and Figge, 2020). While the conceptualisation of inter-firm co-opetition as a strategy to enhance performance has increased (Estrada et al, 2016;Gnyawali and Park, 2011;Ritala and Hurmelinna-Laukkanen, 2013), its operationalisation in corporate social responsibility (CSR)/ sustainability and dimensionality remains unexplored to date making it difficult to ascertain its strategic value (Kumar et al, 2020). Consequently, this study contributes to both research and practice by investigating CRS activities from the co-opetitive perspective of a firm, providing a set of measures of the construct that account for its dimensionality.…”