Call for Papers: From Paradox to Practice – the Rise of Coopetition Strategies

A special issue of International Journal of Business Environment

Real life relationships between firms are becoming increasingly distant from simple competition and cooperation models, making existing theoretical frameworks less relevant both for managers and academics than they were two decades ago. Increasingly, firms cooperate and compete in the same time, within value creation networks and dyadic relationships. Coopetition strategies have been the focus of a growing researchers’ community for more than a decade now.

This special issue aims at exploring recent developments, ideas, approaches and findings within the coopetition strategy research field.

It is intended for academics, researchers and managers who are involved in the coopetition research stream or manage dynamic, complex and often paradoxical relationships between firms. Authors are invited to submit papers presenting studies related to the theory or practice of coopetition at different levels of investigations (e.g. networks, interfirm relations, intra-firm relations).

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the 5th Workshop on Coopetition Strategy (University of Economics in Katowice, Poland, 13-14 September, 2012), but we also strongly encourage researchers unable to participate in the conference to submit papers for this call.

This issue addresses a wide range of theoretical, empirical and methodological facets of coopetition strategy research. We particularly welcome papers focusing on, but not limited to:

 Theoretical framework development for coopetition studies across different levels of analysis:

•  microfoundations
•  interorganisational
•  network
•  industry

 Managerial tensions generated within and between organisations when implementing coopetition strategies:

•  Ambidexterity of coopeting organisations
•  The role of dynamic capabilities in developing coopetitive relations
•  Governance structures fostering coopetition success
•  Team composition and behaviours
•  Coopetition cultural antecedents

 Coopetition phenomenon:

•  Empirical results of coopetition process development scrutiny
•  Coopetitive strategies for distributive relationships
•  The role of power of actors in the emergence of coopetitive strategies
•  Resource orchestration in a coopetitive network

Important Dates
Submission deadline: 15 November, 2012
Author notification: 31 March, 2013
Revised papers deadline: 30 May, 2013