Konkurrens har varit den gällande synen under en lång tid för hur företag ska tänka och agera på en marknad. Konkurrens medför bland annat till innovation och ökad vinst, det ger även lägre priser till kunden. Senare har dock samarbete blivit mer vanligt eftersom det exempelvis kan ge minskade kostnader, högre kvalitet och en ökad utdelning på lång sikt. Allt eftersom marknaden förändras har en blandning av dessa uppstått, det vill säga coopetition. Detta innebär att två eller flera aktörer samarbetar trots att de även är konkurrenter. Coopetition kan sägas ha alla de fördelar konkurrens och samarbete har, det vill säga att aktörerna både kan stärka varandra och inspirera varandra att utvecklas.   Det övergripande syftet med uppsatsen är att förbättra förståelsen för hur mindre kommuner med liten befolkning som delvis konkurrerar med varandra kan samarbeta för att tillsammans utveckla turismen i regionen. Syftet har delats upp i tre delsyften där vi vill identifiera drivkrafter till coopetition för mindre kommuner med avseende på turism, samt se hur dessa samspelar på olika nivåer för att kunna skapa en ökad attraktivitet. Slutligen vill vi med studien även visa hur mindre kommuner kan hantera coopetition för att utvecklas.

e-Learning has been developed for a decade in Taiwan, where rapidly kept pace with advanced countries. Many industries create e-Learning best practice and become benchmark in a leading way in Greater China. Taiwan government plays a critical role to support digital learning development through counseling, project import, quality certification system, technology transfer and R&D subsidies. In this study, the author who has been a technical worker in an e-Learning company for years observes its development and improvement to analysis the key points in each stage of development. Furthermore, the case study is about the integration of group enterprises and its strategy corresponds to each stage to research the future of digital learning industrial chain development. The e-Learning industry is both competitive and cooperative. Every company¡¦s products are competing, but they also need to integrate with each other before they can offer clients the solutions and right services. Therefore, the study focuses on whether the group enterprises take advantage of its industrial value chain integration to raise the position and compete with the other companies to make the maximum performance. There is also hoped that the results of the study will provide the reference of success possibility for digital learning or new industry.

Horizontal relationships between subsidiaries within an MNC are rarely shown on an organisation chart but the interactions along this dimension are critical to the achievement of an MNC’s global operations and strategic activities. Different interaction logics of social relationships and economic exchanges in horizontal relationships induce simultaneous competition and collaboration between the subsidiaries. Collaboration and competition is a business reality in inter-subsidiary relationships as they collaborate to share resources and knowledge, but ultimately compete for resources, customers and profits. While much research has focused on the effects of internal collaboration, and to a lesser extent internal competition, on organisational performance, little is known about the antecedents of competition and collaboration and the interplay of simultaneously occurring interactions. By focusing on one or the other, any understanding of the inherent tensions between the two is overlooked. This research explores the coopetitive nature of the inter-subsidiary relationship using a qualitative approach within three MNCs, where internal competition and collaboration are more salient. Data were gathered from 98 semi-structured interviews with top and senior management, top management focus groups and a body of secondary data including internal reports, policy documents and external publications, among others, has been referenced. The study makes three key contributions. First, by extending Luo’s (2005) theoretical model of intra-MNE coopetition, the study identifies additional respective antecedents of competition and collaboration. Second, the study locates inherent tensions arising from inter-subsidiary coopetition and explicates how the tensions are managed by the HQ and subsidiaries using spatial, balancing and assessing mechanisms and specific interventions. Third, the study offers an empirically-based model of inter-subsidiary coopetition with a more dynamic and temporal set of multiple relationships among the subsidiaries within the MNCs. Management implications include that senior management teams be aware of the opportunities and constraints of promoting a culture of collaboration while simultaneously fostering inter-subsidiary competition through internal accounting policies and incentive systems, and that the capability of senior managers to work effectively within dual organisational structures be developed and incorporated into executive development programmes.

Konkurrens och samarbete kan ses som kontraster. Men teorin coopetition menar att dessa kan ske simultant. Studiens syfte är att utöka coopetition-fältet genom att undersöka ett branschforum och hur samarbete och konkurrens kring hållbarhet upplevs av konkurrerande fastighetsbolag. En fallstudie på Stockholms stads Forum för hållbara fastigheter har genomförts. Studien består av sex semistrukturerade intervjuer med en projektledare för forumet och fem bolagsrepresentanter. Det teoretiska ramverk som använts är processdelen ur Bengtsson & Raza-Ullahs (2016) modell. Studien tyder på att processen är dynamisk, men innehåller mindre utmaningar och är mindre komplex än vad teorin beskriver. Det går inte heller att identifiera någon spänning. Samtidighet sker i tid, men inte i rum. I denna studie är hållbarhet ett område där det är relativt lätt att samarbeta med konkurrenter. Avslutningsvis ställer sig studien frågande till vad det egentligen innebär att samarbete och konkurrens ska ske samtidigt samt hur det tar sig i uttryck.

The business environment has become increasingly complex and dynamic in recent years, requiring companies to compete in a fast-developing and fast-changing environment. In order for companies to maintain sustained competitive advantage and success, they increasingly engage in various forms of inter-organizational alliances, which enable the creation of value. Value creation through alliances is often seen as a result of a purely collaborative behavior however, it can also result from the presence of collaboration and competition simultaneously. Thus, one form of inter-organizational alliances that has become increasingly popular both scientifically and practically in the last two decades is coopetition, the paradoxical relationship that arises when two or more companies cooperate and compete with each other at the same time. We have detected three gaps in previous research on coopetition. Firstly, previous research has lacked to look at coopetitive interactions and their effects. Secondly, research has lacked to empirically investigate negative outcomes of coopetition. Thirdly, research has lacked to examine a two-sided perception of specific dyadic coopetitive relationships and their coopetitive interactions with regard to performance outcomes. This research gaps motivated us to find answers to the following research question:  “How do coopetitive interactions in a dyadic coopetitive relationship affect the performance outcomes of both partners in this relationship?” As such, the purpose of the study is to explore the effect of coopetitive interactions on performance outcomes from a two-sided perspective in a dyadic coopetitive relationship. This further means exploring how coopetitive interactions occur, how such interactions impact performance outcomes, and what factors influence these coopetitive interactions. In order to realize the research purpose consisting of four objectives, we conducted a qualitative study in form of semi-structured in-depth interviews with ten companies from different industries located in Sweden. This enabled us to get one two-sided perspective from two coopeting partners of the same coopetitive relationship and beyond some one-sided perspectives that still provided perceptions for both sides of the coopetitive relationship. The findings and analysis show that the customer plays a central role in the decision for two companies to form a coopetitive relationship and engage in coopetition either out of mutual consent or out of force. Depending on if the customer has an unsought influence or a forcing influence on the decision to engage in coopetition, the interactions can be either cooperation- or competition-dominated. This further influences the degree of tensions, which are created internally, and these tensions influence the degree of reciprocity, which will ultimately affects the respective performance outcomes for both companies in the dyadic coopetitive relationship. Furthermore, we have figured out that these coopetitive interactions can be affected by a combination of managerial capabilities (proactivity, management frameworks) and social capabilities (commitment, trust, transparency, openness). As a result, we derived propositions and developed a conceptual model illustrating this process for validation in further research.

This paper is the result of a study of competition and cooperation in regard to tourism between the five largest municipalities in Norrland in northern Sweden. The municipalities are Luleå, Skellefteå, Umeå, Sundsvall and Gävle. The aim was to study the relation between competition and cooperation between these municipalities. An important theoretical aspect in this study is coopetition, where competition and cooperation occur at the same time. The studies on coopetition in the Nordic kontext is limited and the main literature on coopetition study the relationship between firms. This study however takes a geographical standpoint and aims to fill the gap in the literature on how competition and cooperation are connected to each other between chosen municipalities. To do this the tourism strategies of the municipalities were studied thoroughly. These written strategies provided information about how the municipalities view their competitive advantages and disadvantages and some general information about how they cooperate with the nearest regions. To find out how the municipalities think about competition and cooperation with the other four specific municipalities interviews were made with experts on the tourism field in each municipality. The results show that the municipalities do not have established strategies for how they are to be competitive compared with other specific municipalities. They do not see it as profitable to compete, instead they should complement each other. At the same time however, most of the municipalities mostly cooperate with municipalities in a short distance from them, and due to lack of resources only briefly or not at all with the municipalities studied here.

Med den stora överhängande klimatkrisen som influerar sättet som vi agerar och lever idag så ökar även forskningen kring hållbarhet inom alla områden. Det blir vitalt att fortsätta undersöka då vi har en deadline att möta. Det blir hela tiden av vikt att ta reda på hur vi kan förändra de ordinarie sätten att leva och arbeta på för att istället kunna göra en positiv klimatpåverkan. Inom den företagsekonomiska forskningen har hållbarhetsarbete diskuterats som ett sätt att generera kapital och marknadsfördelar. Vidare finns även diskussioner om att det är vitalt för företagen att arbeta med hållbarhet och vilka tillvägagångssätt de kan använda. I diskussionen har forskningen visat att olika typer av samarbeten har en tydlig effekt på hållbarhetsarbete där företag uppmanas att arbeta tillsammans med andra för att nå hållbarhetsmål.  Studien syftar till att studera hur företag kan förbättra sitt hållbarhetsarbete om de samarbetar med sina konkurrenter, alltså om de ingår i en hållbar coopetitiv relation. Detta forskningsområde saknar tidigare forskning då fenomenet hållbar coopetition ännu inte är djupt studerat, vilket har gjort att studien presenterar ett tydligt forskningsgap men att resultaten hittills visar på positiva utfall från hållbarhetsfrämjande coopetitiva relationer.  Författarna har valt att undersöka fenomenet hållbar coopetition genom en fallstudie där vi medvetet valt att inkludera fyra verksamheter från ett hållbart restaurangnätverk. Nätverket passar studien då deras främsta anledning till att arbeta tillsammans är för att främja hållbarhet i restaurangbranschen samt att alla aktörer inom nätverket är varandras konkurrenter. För att undersöka nätverket har författarna valt en kvalitativ metod där insamlingsmetoder för primärdata valdes till semistrukturerade intervjuer. Insamling av sekundärdata sker i viss mängd för att tydligare assistera informationen om nätverkets mål och arbetssätt.  Studien konkluderar att den studerade hållbara coopetitiva relationen främjar hållbarhet då studiens resultat visar på att respondenterna har kunnat utveckla sitt hållbarhetsarbete och inkluderat arbetssätt i linje med hållbar utveckling. Författarna kunde även identifiera drivkrafter, förutsättningar och utfall hos aktörerna kopplat till den hållbara relationen. Detta gör det möjligt för studien att ge ett teoretiskt bidrag i en utveckling av forskningsområdet hållbar coopetition då studien har kunnat visa att coopetition främjar hållbarhetsarbete. Med resultatet kan vi uppmuntra samhället till att fortsätta skapa coopetitiva hållbara relationer för att främja hållbarhet och för att utveckla verksamheternas enskilda arbete till att gå i linje med hållbar utveckling.

Research on the phenomenon of coopetition described as two competing firms cooperating with the intent to create value have seen a great increase the last couple of years. However, studies exploring intra-firm coopetition have been less popular leaving this research field understudied and in need for further exploration. An intra-firm competition relationship can be defined as when two or more project teams cooperate on a joint project, simultaneously as they are competing for their parents’ firms’ resources. Pursuing such a contradictory relationship is not without challenges and therefore, cooperative and competitive activities needs to be balanced in order to achieve value creation. In the context of an organization based on projects, the dynamic relationship of coopetition poses several challenges for project managers to handle. The purpose of the study was to further generate and assist the development of the theory field of coopetition by gaining a deeper understanding of the coopetitive dynamics on an intra-firm level. In this thesis, we explore How is intra-firm coopetition perceived and handled in order to create value within an organization? By conducting semi-structured interviews, seven project team members from three different organizations in the automobile industry ecosystem, shared their experiences of working project based and being exposed to intra-firm coopetition on daily basis. Our findings suggest that intra-firm coopetition needs to be balanced to support value creation. The analysis of the study was conducted by a project-as-practice lens which supported the understanding of cooperative and competitive activities that the project teams participated in. The respondents perceived cooperative activities as beneficial for organizational learning and stressed the importance of social interactions between project teams. On the other hand, competitive activities were perceived as positive as long as they were held on a healthy level and did not become dominant. Our study advances the research field of intra-firm coopetition by gaining knowledge of underlying factors of cooperative and competitive activities that are sources for tension, and how reaching and maintaining a state of balance is crucial for value creation both for the project team, organization and customer. Keywords: Coopetition, Intra-firm coopetition, project-based organizations, and projects-as-practice.

Horizontal relationships between subsidiaries within an MNC are rarely shown on an organisation chart but the interactions along this dimension are critical to the achievement of an MNC’s global operations and strategic activities. Different interaction logics of social relationships and economic exchanges in horizontal relationships induce simultaneous competition and collaboration between the subsidiaries. Collaboration and competition is a business reality in inter-subsidiary relationships as they collaborate to share resources and knowledge, but ultimately compete for resources, customers and profits. While much research has focused on the effects of internal collaboration, and to a lesser extent internal competition, on organisational performance, little is known about the antecedents of competition and collaboration and the interplay of simultaneously occurring interactions. By focusing on one or the other, any understanding of the inherent tensions between the two is overlooked. This research explores the coopetitive nature of the inter-subsidiary relationship using a qualitative approach within three MNCs, where internal competition and collaboration are more salient. Data were gathered from 98 semi-structured interviews with top and senior management, top management focus groups and a body of secondary data including internal reports, policy documents and external publications, among others, has been referenced. The study makes three key contributions. First, by extending Luo’s (2005) theoretical model of intra-MNE coopetition, the study identifies additional respective antecedents of competition and collaboration. Second, the study locates inherent tensions arising from inter-subsidiary coopetition and explicates how the tensions are managed by the HQ and subsidiaries using spatial, balancing and assessing mechanisms and specific interventions. Third, the study offers an empirically-based model of inter-subsidiary coopetition with a more dynamic and temporal set of multiple relationships among the subsidiaries within the MNCs. Management implications include that senior management teams be aware of the opportunities and constraints of promoting a culture of collaboration while simultaneously fostering inter-subsidiary competition through internal accounting policies and incentive systems, and that the capability of senior managers to work effectively within dual organisational structures be developed and incorporated into executive development programmes.

Now the motel industry in Taiwan is increasingly sophisticated, and even some motels are positioning themselves as the boutique hotels,so the business model has been out of the previous framework, like the hotel, with the high texture, on the other hand, beyond the hotel, with rich diversity. Now the motels are no longer set up near highway ramp to pursue convenience and privacy, but to find good location near department stores, metro, and science-based Industrial Park. Now the motel industry places more emphasis on the freshness and characteristics of the product, so in addition to the pursuit of convenience and practicality, motels now focus more on entertainment features. On the other hand, the motels are almost everywhere in high competition status, it is not difficult to find many cluster regions all over Taiwan. In the circumstances, consumers have clear and close impression to link the image between these cluster regions and the motels inside the regions. However the reason why motels usually were gathered and formed to be a cluster.What motivations resulted in industry cluster? What characteristics are shaped inside? How the cluster effect be developed and influence the relations of motels in the same cluster region. These questions are be researched in this thesis. In this study,I selected three major and representative motel clusters in Taiwan: Dazhi Land Consolidation of Taipei City, 7th Land Consolidation of Taichung, 16th agricultural Land Consideration of Kaohsiung City, mainly by interviewing with executives of the motel industry in order to understand the causes of industrial clusters,the competition and cooperation relation in motel clusters, and cluster effect in the industry. And exploring and analyzing the environment of these three cluster regions through observation method, in order to understand the correlation of regional environmental and development of clusters. Finally, the results of this study found that: (1) the main cause of motel cluster, is not because of being attracted by the cluster effect, but the similar needs for location. (2) There are seldomly cooperative behaviors in the motel industry, because the motel industry is very secretive and motels in the same cluster tend to imitate each other, so these results deepen the intensity of competition. (3) The causes of motel cluster are hoping for attracting more customers and finding the appropriate operating environment. (4) Because the industry become saturated and sophisticated, it is very important to make prudent cost-benefit assessment. Besides, it is better to reassess influences of the cluster and try to be aware of the direction of government policy to evaluate the future and the development. (5) Consumer loyalty in motel industry is low, therefore, the latecomers usually have more competitive advantage, and the cluster effects are positive. (6) Although the surroundings are important to all the motels, but there are some different connotations, meanings, and expectations for different motels. (7) The quality of the cluster effect, can not only be evaluated from the perspective of cluster itself, but also be judged from the consideration of the motel itself in one cluster with relative strengths or weaknesses.