Investigating the effect of horizontal coopetition on supply chain resilience in complex and turbulent environments

Today supply chain operations are continuously threatened by frequent and unpredictable disruptions. To survive in such complex and fast-changing environments, firms need to develop resilient strategies for their supply chains. To this regard, previous studies in literature have shown that cooperative relationships play a relevant role. However, there are evidence that firms more often prefer a coopetition strategy, where both cooperative and competitive relationships are simultaneously adopted to manage supply chain relationships. Despite the relevance of this topic, how coopetitive relationships influence resilience has been less investigated so far. In this paper, we use a complex adaptive system approach to conceptualize horizontal coopetition in supply chains and develop a novel agent-based model to simulate its effect on supply chain resilient performance in different environmental conditions, characterized by increasing level of complexity and frequency of disruptions. Results show that coopetition can be beneficial for supply chain resilience and that environmental complexity (turbulence) positively (negatively) moderates this relation. Theoretical contributions and managerial implications are finally discussed.

Automated summary

Supply chain operations are under constant threat from frequent and unpredictable disruptions. Firms must develop resilient strategies to survive in complex and fast-changing environments. While previous studies suggest the importance of cooperative relationships, firms tend to prefer a coopetition strategy. The impact of coopetitive relationships on resilience is still underexplored.