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Coopetition and Complexity

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Coopetition and Complexity Coopetition and Complexity Exploring a Coopetitive Relationship with Complexity Authors: Emil Persson Andreas Wennberg Supervisor: Malin Näsholm Student Umeå School of Business and Economics Autumn semester 2011 Bachelor thesis, 15 hp Acknowledgements We would like to express our gratitude to all people in Unlimited Travel Group for giving of their time and effort. Without the possibility of conducting interviews, this research would not have been possible. Also, we want to thank our supervisor Malin Näsholm who gave us valuable input, comments and feedback throughout the work with writing this thesis. January 16th, 2012 Umeå School of Business and Economics Umeå University Emil Persson Andreas Wennberg Abstract Cooperation have in previous research been seen as a negative impact on competition and vice versa. This thesis is building on a concept called coopetition in which cooperation and competition is studied simultaneously. Coopetition have been studied in terms of the level of cooperation and competition. However, we found a possible link between coopetition and complexity in previous literature. Thus, the purpose of this study is to explore whether complexity can develop an understanding for what organizations within a company group cooperate and compete about as well what they want to cooperate and compete about. The four main cornerstones in the theoretical frame of reference is cooperation, competition, coopetition and complexity. We begin by defining these concepts, describing previous research and discuss various factors of the concepts. Finally, we further develop the possible link between coopetition and complexity. For reaching our purpose we study a company group in the travel industry. We are conducting unstructured interviews with people at leading positions in the company group. Our analysis is done by thematic network analysis in six steps. The empirical data is coded, basic themes are found and a condensed version of the interviews is presented together with a short presentation about the company group. In the analysis we present two global themes, cooperation and competition. These are both derived from the basic themes and organizing themes. The factors of complexity are the organizing themes. Our conclusion is that complexity can categorize wanted and actual cooperation in the company group in the sense that complexity has to be lowered for cooperation to exist. Regarding competition, we did not draw any conclusion to our purpose due to lack of data. However, we find that competition is mainly seen as negative in the coopetitive situation studied. The implications of this thesis is that complexity can further refine the concept of coopetition but the causality have to be further tested. In a managerial perspective, leaders should focus on decreasing the factors of complexity if cooperation is wanted. We also suggest that it is important to understand if people in organizations are positive towards cooperation and negative to competition or the other way around. Table of Content 1. Introduction............................................................................................................................1 1.1 Problem Background .................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Research Question ........................................................................................................................ 3 1.3 Purpose ......................................................................................................................................... 3 2. Theoretical Frame of Reference ............................................................................................4 2.1 Cooperation .................................................................................................................................. 4 2.2 Competition .................................................................................................................................. 5 2.3 Coopetition ................................................................................................................................... 5 2.3.1 Factors of Coopetition........................................................................................................................... 8 2.3.2 Resources .............................................................................................................................................. 8 2.3.3 Goals and Benefits ................................................................................................................................ 9 2.4 Complexity and Coopetition....................................................................................................... 10 3. Methodology........................................................................................................................12 3.1 Ontology ..................................................................................................................................... 12 3.2 Epistemology.............................................................................................................................. 12 3.3 Induction..................................................................................................................................... 13 3.4 Qualitative Research................................................................................................................... 13 3.5 Preunderstanding ........................................................................................................................ 14 3.5.1 The Preunderstanding of Andreas Wennberg ..................................................................................... 14 3.5.2 The Preunderstanding of Emil Persson............................................................................................... 15 3.6 Theoretical Frame of Reference ................................................................................................. 15 3.7 Source Criticism ......................................................................................................................... 16 3.8 Selected Company ...................................................................................................................... 17 3.9 Designing and Conducting Interviews ....................................................................................... 18 3.9.1 Unstructured Interview ....................................................................................................................... 19 3.9.2 The Interview Guide ........................................................................................................................... 19 3.9.3 Ethical Considerations ........................................................................................................................ 21 3.10 Transcribing and Analyzing Interviews ................................................................................... 21 3.11 Thematic Analysis of Qualitative Data .................................................................................... 22 4. Empirical Study ...................................................................................................................24 4.1 PolarQuest, Västindienspecialisten and Unlimited Travel Group.............................................. 27 4.2 JB Travel..................................................................................................................................... 28 4.3 Good Travel................................................................................................................................ 30 4.4 Travel Beyond ............................................................................................................................ 31 4.5 Eventyr........................................................................................................................................ 32 4.6 Unlimited Travel Group and Birdie Golf Tours......................................................................... 34 4.7 Ski Unlimited.............................................................................................................................. 35 4.8 WI Resor..................................................................................................................................... 37 4.9 Världens Resor ........................................................................................................................... 38 5. Analysis ...............................................................................................................................40 5.1 Cooperation ................................................................................................................................ 40 5.2 Competition ................................................................................................................................ 43 6. Discussion and Conclusion..................................................................................................45 6.3 Implications ................................................................................................................................ 47 6.4 Truth Criteria .............................................................................................................................. 47 6.5 Further Studies...........................................................................................................................
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