Coopetition Disadvantages: the Case of the High Tech Companies

Coopetition (simultaneous cooperation and competition between competitors) is rapidly becoming a key success factor for enterprises operating in the contemporary business world. The literature on coopetition characterizes these relationships mostly in the context of the benefits achieved; however, coopetition is fraught with threats arising mainly from both the coexistence and interaction of streams of cooperation and competition between competitors. Research on a sample of 235 companies operating in the high technology sector (HT) in Poland has shown that there is a number of risks accompanying coopetition. The most common amongst them are the low efficiency of activities and goals pursued (statistically significant for all the activities of the value chain as areas of cooperation). The areas of coopetition that are most exposed to risk are sales and distribution, logistics and finance (nine out of 12 risks analysed). Due to the similarity of the frequency of occurrence of particular threats to coopetition, and using the method of cluster analysis, four groups of value chain areas with similar risks have been identified. The first such group is finance and marketing, the second is sales and production, the third is human resources and logistics, and finally the fourth is information technology, purchasing inputs and R&D. When selecting the area of competitive cooperation corresponding to the individual clusters of the value chain activities, one may expect the occurrence of similar threats to coopetition. The research findings allow interested parties to predict threats to coopetition when choosing specific areas of cooperation and thus an extension to cooperation between competitors which will not increase the quantity of these threats.