Toward coopetition within a multinational enterprise: A perspective from foreign subsidiaries

This article presents a conceptual and typological framework that delineates coopetition within a globally coordinated multinational enterprise--simultaneous cooperation and competition between geographically dispersed subunits. With heightened interdependence in resource or knowledge sharing, value-chain rationalization, and common function integration, foreign subsidiaries increasingly cooperate between themselves, bilaterally or multilaterally, in pursuit of synergistically collective gains while synchronically competing for parent resources, corporate support, system position, and market expansion. This article explains why coopetition occurs and in what areas they cooperate and compete, augments a typology that classifies subunits along the various levels of simultaneous cooperation and competition (aggressive demander, silent implementer, ardent contributor, and network captain), discusses respective determinants of cooperation and competition, and explicates the internal infrastructure needed to help maximize consolidated returns from coopetition.

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