A Framework For Coopetition Strategy in Innovative Technology Startups

Purpose - the main purpose of this study is to design a coopetition strategy model for gaining competitive advantage in innovative technology startups. design/methodology/approach - this is a qualitative study based on grounded theory that uses semi-structured interviews for data collecting. in this study, interviewees were selected from among technological startup experts using purposive and chain sampling. we proceeded based on the grounded theory to provide a coopetition strategy theory for technological startups. the theoretical saturation was reached after nine interviews, but to be on the safe side, 15 subjects were interviewed. findings – the categories that emerged from data based on paradigm model were: casual conditions (market conditions, dyadic factors between potential partner firms and individual factors of firms); context conditions (agreement form, structural design, setup of relational mechanisms and routines); intervening conditions (actor characteristics, environmental characteristics), core phenomena (basic goals, actor similarities, tensions and conflicts, balance of cooperation and competition); strategies (create a balance between competition and cooperation, optimal combination of competitive and cooperative forces, managing dynamics, managing tension and conflict, coordination of actions) and consequences (output for actors and industry). originality/value – despite the growing number of studies that describe coopetition strategies of different organizations, there are few researches that provide companies how to run coopetition specially in starts up and gain it’s benefit compare with when they compete lonely with rivals to represent product and services to customer compared to other studies that attempt to describe and classify coopetition academic field or even few papers that provide a framework for coopetition strategy.

A Framework for Coopetition Strategy in Innovative Technology Startups

Purpose - The main purpose of this study is to design a coopetition strategy model for gaining competitive advantage in innovative technology startups. Design/methodology/approach - This is a qualitative study based on grounded theory that uses semi-structured interviews for data collecting. In this study, interviewees were selected from among technological startup experts using purposive and chain sampling. We proceeded based on the grounded theory to provide a coopetition strategy theory for technological startups. The theoretical saturation was reached after nine interviews, but to be on the safe side, 15 subjects were interviewed. Findings – The categories that emerged from data based on paradigm model were: casual conditions (market conditions, dyadic factors between potential partner firms and individual factors of firms); context conditions (agreement form, structural design, setup of relational mechanisms and routines); intervening conditions (actor characteristics, environmental characteristics), core phenomena (basic goals, actor similarities, tensions and conflicts, balance of cooperation and competition); strategies (create a balance between competition and cooperation, optimal combination of competitive and cooperative forces, managing dynamics, managing tension and conflict, coordination of actions) and Consequences (output for actors and industry). Originality/value – Despite the growing number of studies that describe coopetition strategies of different organizations, there are few researches that provide companies how to run coopetition specially in starts up and gain it’s benefit compare with when they compete lonely with rivals to represent product and services to customer compared to other studies that attempt to describe and classify coopetition academic field or even few papers that provide a framework for coopetition strategy.