The Coopetition - Innovation Nexus: Investigating the Role of Coopetition for Innovation in SMEs

Coopetition, i.e. cooperation among competitors such as Daimler and BMW who recently \ndecided to merge their car sharing services, has become more than a buzz-word and has \ninspired practitioners and scholars to increasingly draw attention to the existence of \nrelationships that include cooperative and competitive ties simultaneously. \nThe finding that collaboration with rivals can be beneficial for innovation represents a \nvaluable insight, because innovation is a major strategy to ensure firms’ long-term \nsurvival. The role of coopetition for innovation may be particularly pronounced when \nfirms face scarcities in resources and knowledge, which may inhibit their innovation \ncapability. Typically, SMEs are confronted with such limitations, however, only some \nstudies have explored coopetition in this context so far. Instead, most coopetition research \nhas focused on large firms. By enabling important sharing mechanisms through which \nresources and knowledge can be mutually accessed, developed, and integrated into the \ncoopeting firms, coopetition may symbolise an escape route for SMEs. \nGiven the lack of research and the potential importance of coopetition for innovation in \nresource-constrained settings, the objective of this thesis is to demystify how SMEs, \nincluding their typical sub-groups young SMEs and family SMEs, can boost innovation \nthrough coopetition. This thesis is composed of two parts. Part I sets out the background, \nliterature, and conclusions of the thesis; Part II presents the six publications that apply \ndifferent scientific methods to answer the research questions. \nThe study makes three main contributions. First, it illustrates the infancy stage of \ncoopetition research as several open questions remain unanswered. Second, the insights \nadvance the knowledge of how coopetition can facilitate innovation in SMEs that face \nshortages in resources and knowledge, including the two sub-groups of young SMEs and \nfamily SMEs. Third, the thesis shows how family SMEs’ survival can be improved by \ncoopetition along with the family members’ socioemotional, non-economic objectives. \nAdditionally, the empirical findings reveal not only possible benefits but also risks \naccompanying coopetition, which underlines the double-edged consequences of \ncoopetition.