Coopetition in healthcare: Heresy or reality? An exploration of felt outcomes at an intra-organizational level

Abstract

This paper deals with coopetition in the healthcare sector, where in developed countries providers are experiencing a growing paradox between cooperation, as encouraged by authorities, and competition, in terms of resources or market share. Via comprehensive research methodology, we carry out a case study on a French Cancer Control Unit that simultaneously competes and cooperates with other local cancer treatment providers. We focus on different professional groups and their perceptions of coopetitive outcomes. Firstly, we show that different generic coopetitive situations exist and can be distinguished according to their degree of spontaneity, complementarity and value creation. Depending on these situations, felt outcomes differ from one professional group to another, highlighting that coopetition is a very complex reality and experienced differently by different individuals. Secondly, harmony created by coopetition is generally underestimated , whereas it could be used as a catalyst to help managers implement coopetition.

Inter-organizational collaboration between healthcare providers

“…The consideration of sector-specific motives for IOC is important for a follow-up in-depth assessment whether policies attain the intended effects, 19 and how policy aims interfere in a co-opetition based environment. 20 The assessment whether IOCs attain the intended effects is beyond the scope of this paper, however.…”

“…14 However, insight into ties within or between health sectors such as long-term care and mental care are important as health systems have become increasingly complex and difficult to understand as a whole. 19,20…”

“…When healthcare organizations establish IOCs with simultaneous cooperative and competitive motives, often referred to as co-opetition in horizontal collaborations, 21 healthcare executives especially play a pivotal role: the responsibility to assess the legal admissibility of IOC rests at the healthcare organizations and their executives. a Although co-opetition and the complexity of establishing successful IOCs has received attention in the context of healthcare and healthcare management, 16,20 it is yet unknown what considerations healthcare executives take into account when establishing IOCs.…”

Coopetitive Platform: Common Benefits in Electricity and Gas Distribution

“…While coopetition has been empirically studied for actors such as firms [13], their divisions [14], tourism destinations [15], nonprofit sports clubs [16], humanitarian organizations [17], or hospitals [18], no study, to our best knowledge, has addressed coopetition between public actors such as governments, regional authorities, or municipalities. This is surprising because the interdependence of such public actors has received significant attention in recent decades.…”

Marketisation and regional planning in neoliberal public services: Evidence from French hospitals

“…There has been increasing emphasis on ‘regionalisation’ or ‘territorialisation’ in French policy discourse (Codefy Lucas- & Gabrielli 2011; Tabuteau 2012). Concurrently, far-reaching measures have been taken to increase market competition within the sector (Albert-Cromarias & Dos Santos 2020; Izambert 2016). While some Francophone practitioner literature has identified a developing ‘paradox’ whereby the competitive logic imposed on hospitals has coincided with increasing supervision by the central government (Couty 2012; Romatet 2012), there has been little academic research examining how these dynamics intersect; still less so with a view to understanding the tensions between decentralisation and marketisation more generally.…”