Managing technology transfer between coopetitive firms: the roles of coopetition, asset specificity and justice

Abstract

Purpose Prior studies have demonstrated the important role of coopetition in firms’ innovation. Based on the paradox perspective, this study aims to focus on technology transfer, the pre-innovation stage, to provide a supplementary understanding of the complementarity and contradictoriness of paradoxical coopetition, with the formal and informal governance mechanisms which are suitable with this understanding in coopetition. Design/methodology/approach This study conducted an original, multisource survey of 280 Chinese manufacturing firms. Hypotheses were tested through multiple regressions. Findings Coopetition has a positive impact on technology transfer between firms. Along with the increasing specificity of assets invested ex ante as a kind of formal governance mechanism, the relationship between coopetition and technology transfer becomes stronger. Meanwhile, inter-firm justice as an informal governance mechanism in the technology transfer process can be positively affected by coopetition between partners. Originality/value The study adds to the business-to-business coopetition literature on how to properly treat and use coopetition in technology transfer. Using the paradox perspective in the Chinese context, the findings emphasize the positive role of coopetition in the inter-firm technological exchange process, enriching the understanding of the complementary and contradictory features of paradoxical coopetition. To govern coopetitive relationships, the firms should also implement two fundamental governance mechanisms, that is, specialty asset and inter-firm justice.

Unmasking conflict in vertical coopetition

“…Moreover, our study empirically demonstrates that protecting product-related technology was perceived negatively in vertical coopetition, which led to a competition dominated relationship. This result adds knowledge to the study by Liu et al (2020), as they argued that conflicts naturally decline when focusing on the positive complementarity of the technologies of the relationship Figure 3 Summary of the key findings parties. Our findings show that product-related technology protection caused conflicts and that neither of the relationship parties were able to focus on the potential positive effects of technology complementarity because of the risk of losing the business.…”

“…Coopetition can be defined as "a paradoxical relationship between two or more actors, regardless of whether they are involved in horizontal or vertical relationships, simultaneously involved in cooperative and competitive interactions" (Bengtsson and Kock, 2014, p. 180). The intention of coopetition is to create value (Gnyawali and Ryan Charleton, 2018), by combining the advantages of cooperation and competition through combining resources to reach a stronger position in the global competition (Liu et al, 2020).…”

“…The simultaneous existence of cooperation and competition that is coopetition, has recently attracted interest both in practice and research (Chai et al, 2019;Crick, 2020a;Crick and Crick, 2019;Liu et al, 2020;Tidström et al, 2018). Coopetition can be defined as "a paradoxical relationship between two or more actors, regardless of whether they are involved in horizontal or vertical relationships, simultaneously involved in cooperative and competitive interactions" (Bengtsson and Kock, 2014, p. 180).…”

Coopetition within the entrepreneurial ecosystem: startups’ entrepreneurial learning processes and their implications for new venture performance

“…Learning is one of the main methods to integrate knowledge, which enables firms to accumulate, store and apply knowledge to corporate practices and rules (Kim et al, 2012(Kim et al, , p. 1049. As coopetition can facilitate knowledge sharing between enterprises and form a common knowledge basement, it provides many learning opportunities for startups (Chen et al, 2020;Liu et al, 2021;Marco et al, 2020). In the process of participating in coopetition activities, startups acquire new external knowledge on the one hand and exploit existing knowledge on the other (Gast et al, 2019).…”

“…If companies compete too much, the ecosystem may fail to form (Hannah and Eisenhardt, 2018). Existing literature suggests that competition and cooperation are both important for firms engaging in coopetition activities (Kim et al , 2013; Liu et al , 2021; Chen et al , 2021). On the one hand, cooperation is very important to value creation.…”