Organization and Management of Coopetition : Trust the Competition, Not the Competitor

Abstract: In the search for innovation, high technology firms in the same industries turn to each other for R&D collaborations. The collaboration form where competitors cooperate have been defined as “coopetition” and the term builds on the interplay between competitive and cooperative forces. While coopetition brings benefits such as shared risks and costs, it implies organizational and managerial challenges as two opposing logics merge. This complexity calls for a deeper understanding of how firms organize and manage coopetition and why they organization and manage coopetition in the way they do. This thesis is set to answer these questions by empirically investigate coopetition at a case firm active in a high technology context with a long experience of collaborating with competitors. By acknowledging coopetition as a phenomenon carried out in the shape of projects, the internal organization and management could been thoroughly understood as project management allows a more detailed view of coopetition. Key findings concludes that in this empirical context, finance is the prior reason for engaging in coopetition, competitive forces are superior to cooperative forces in coopetition projects and that coopetition influence innovation more through contributing with funding than by an exchange of knowledge between competitors. All these aspects are further stated to impact organization and management of coopetition.