Impact of Co-Opetition on Firm Competitive Behavior: An Empirical Examination

Abstract

The authors examine how co-opetition - simultaneous cooperation and competition - affects firms' competitive behavior, proposing that differential structural positions among firms in a co-opetitive network reflect resource asymmetries among them and that such asymmetries lead to differences in the volume and diversity of competitive actions undertaken by those firms. Data on cooperative network structure and competitive actions from the steel industry suggest that the firm's centrality is positively related to its volume of competitive actions and that its structural autonomy is positively related to the diversity of such actions. Moreover, market diversity moderates the impact of centrality and structural autonomy on competitive behavior.

Keywords: co-opetition, competitive behavior, network structure