Coopetitive business models in future mobile broadband with licensed shared access (LSA)

6siopenSpectrum scarcity forces mobile network operators (MNOs) providing mobile broadband services to develop new business models that address spectrum sharing. It engages MNOs into coopetitive relationship with incumbents. Licensed Shared Access (LSA) concept complements traditional licensing and helps MNOs to access new spectrum bands on a shared basis. This paper discusses spectrum sharing with LSA from business perspective. It describes how coopetition and business model are linked conceptually, and identifies the influence of coopetition on future business models in LSA. We develop business models for dominant and challenger MNOs in traditional licensing and future with LSA. The results indicate that coopetition and business model concepts are linked via value co-creation and value co-capture. LSA offers different business opportunities to dominant and challenger MNOs. Offering, value proposition, customer segments and differentiation in business models become critical in mobile broadband.openP. Ahokangas; M. Matinmikko; I. Atkova; L.F. Minervini; S. Yrjölä; M. MustonenP., Ahokangas; M., Matinmikko; I., Atkova; Minervini, LEO FULVIO; S., Yrjölä; M., Mustone

Strategically Poised: Balancing, Learning, and Innovating in Coopetition Three Essays on the Interplay Between Competition and Cooperation

This research dissertation explores the firm strategy of coopetition, a neologism denoting simultaneous cooperation and competition. Theoretical development and empirical investigations are conducted to tease out the tradeoff and tension of the coopetition strategy. First, I theorize the socio-cognitive aspects in balancing competition and cooperation between firms. Second, I investigate firm learning experience in strategic alliances and patent searches as the antecedents to coopetition. Third, I examine the contingency effects of multiple network embeddedness on the relation between coopetition pursuits and innovation performance. This research dissertation explores the firm strategy of coopetition, a neologism denoting simultaneous cooperation and competition. Coopetition as a phenomenon has accrued prominence in practice, with economic actors placing a higher emphasis on constructing positive sum scenarios with competing partners. However, strategic management scholarship lacks clarity in explaining how the tensions and tradeoffs associated with coopetition may influence the formulation and the implication of coopetition. With a theoretical and empirical focus on the benefits and caveats of coopetition, this dissertation elucidates coopetition from three angles. First, I theorize the socio-cognitive aspects in balancing competition and cooperation between firms. Second, I investigate firm learning experience in strategic alliances and patent searches as the antecedents to coopetition. Third, I examine the contingency effects of multiple network embeddedness on the relation between coopetition pursuits and innovation performance. The empirical setting of my dissertation research is technology-driven industries, because firms in this setting show high heterogeneity in the key theoretical foci (i.e. coopetition, learning, interorganizational relations, and innovation). The firm sample includes U.S. public firms in multiple high-tech industries (i.e. pharmaceuticals, computers and peripheral equipment, electronics and electronic components, aerospace and aircraft, telecommunication, and medical devices). I construct a panel data with firm-year observations of financial records, alliance and M&A records, and patent records from 1987 to 2006 to test my hypotheses

Open Business Models and Practitioner Capabilities: A Regional Strategic Network Perspective

The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical insight into the operationalisation of the practitioner capabilities that are critical to value co-creation and capture within a public-private sector open business model. The concept of business models is becoming increasingly established in industrial marketing scholarship. However, only a small number of empirical studies have focused on the concept of open business models - those business models in which value is created/co-created between practitioners outside the boundaries of a single firm - and research into the dynamic and ordinary capabilities of boundary-spanning practitioners within open business models appears absent. The empirical setting for the study is centred on three firms that form a public-private sector solutions open business model; which also forms a regional strategic network. A qualitative, single case study methodology is deployed to examine the firms as three embedded units of analysis. The data sources consist of twenty-five semi-structured interviews supplemented by archives of publications. We advance understanding of practitioner capabilities in public-private sector solutions open business models within regional strategic networks that are critical to support value creation/co-creation. As a challenge to the predominant static understanding of business models, we also make practical contributions by advancing understanding where it is currently lacking by focusing on the dynamic and ordinary capabilities of boundary-spanning practitioners in open business models, thus breaking with the rhetorical nature of much business model literature. This approach, therefore, addresses partially the under-socialisation of current business model research

The cooperation-competition paradox: Managing coopetition across firm sizes

This publication-based dissertation investigates how firms of different sizes and structures manage simultaneous cooperation and competition (coopetition). It includes five self-contained research papers, four designed for publication in peer-reviewed academic journals, and one developed for publication as an academic teaching case study. The first paper is a systematic literature review that identifies recent accomplishments and future trends in coopetition research. It delivers a comprehensive, unique, and updated view on the field, unifying scattered research findings into a cohesive and overarching framework. The second paper is a single-case study, zooming in on the inner workings of a corporate incubator. It explores the role and management of internal coopetition to develop entrepreneurial competencies for business model innovation. The third paper shifts the research focus toward large multinational enterprises to explore the formation of new coopetition relationships. It illuminates a new organizational design and accompanying management principles to address paradoxical tensions in the first and potentially most difficult phase of coopetition. The fourth paper taps into the complexities of coopetition between small- and mid-sized firms and large corporates. It uncovers three coopetition strategies and a mix of management principles for smaller firms to navigate asymmetrical risks in coopetition with larger companies. The fifth paper expands the scope of the dissertation to include an entire industry, analyzing the drivers, strategies, and outcomes of coopetition in a highly concentrated and regulated sector. Taken together, the five research papers collectively contribute to a more nuanced understanding about the management of coopetition and provide valuable implications and recommendations for practitioners

Evolutionary or revolutionary business model innovation through coopetition? The role of dominance in network markets

This paper examines how the level of dominance in firms affects when they engage in coopetition in order to innovate their business model. We present a longitudinal and in-depth single case study of the business model innovation decisions of investment banks in the US corporate bond trading market. We find that, in network markets, when firms choose to engage in coopetition in light of competitive threat it is done so in order to adopt a defensive or offensive strategy. The study shows that in network markets the less dominant firms tend to engage in coopetition to innovate their business model in an evolutionary manner before the dominant firms, as a defensive strategy to protect their existing business model. In contrast, the dominant firms tend to engage in coopetition to innovate their business model in a revolutionary manner after the less dominant firms, as an offensive strategy to alter radically their existing business model. We draw implications of coopetition in network markets for both theory and practice.This study was supported by funding from the Economic and Social Research Council.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2015.11.00

Work 4.0 and the Need for Boundary-Spanning

The evolution of a digital world driven by and generating substantial volumes of data is also changing the way people work and associated specializations, characterized as ‘Work 4.0’ in Europe. Smart devices and the use of data analytics is getting work done more effectively but new skills are needed to develop and use these tools. Agility is a requisite capability. Different communities of practice need to work together, possibly with new kinds of users, introducing a need for enhanced boundary-spanning skills and tools. Boundary-spanning activities take place at multiple organizational levels. Teams use boundary object tools as alignment mechanisms, but also create boundary objects (e.g. prototypes) to test alignment. Case observations from agile IS projects associated with large and small firms highlight the influence of context, a need for the use of multiple complementary boundary objects and for learning to use them effectively

The co-ordinative practices of temporary organisations

Purpose: This paper aims to explore the necessary mechanisms for coordination in complex industrial networks which are temporary in nature, known as temporary organisations (TOs). Design/methodology/approach: The paper is based on two in-depth case studies conducted in the UK construction industry. Findings: The paper outlines the necessary mechanisms for coordination in TOs – referred to as “scaffolding practices” – which ensure consistency(stability in terms of thinking and action), consensus (agreement) and co-constitutiveness (personal pledges and commitments). Research limitations/implications: The study provides practical implications for situations where actors create temporary organisational specific logics. This “logic” helps explain how actors are able to undertake tasks of finite duration where members lack familiarity and have competing loyalties. Originality/value: The paper is novel in that it represents the first extant attempt to examine “temporary industrial organizations” where individuals from different (often competing) organisations collaborate on a task for a defined period and suggests how coordination may be achieved

Coopetition and product innovation performance:The role of internal knowledge sharing mechanisms and formal knowledge protection mechanisms

Coopetition is an important new product development strategy; yet, studies addressing the impact of collaboration with competitors on product innovation performance provide mixed evidence. Conducting Tobit analyses on a sample of 627 manufacturing firms that responded to the fifth wave of the Flemish Community Innovation Survey, we find that the innovation performance implications of competitor collaboration depend on fine-grained intra-organizational design characteristics. In particular, our results show that competitor collaboration has a significant positive impact on product innovation performance only when internal knowledge sharing mechanisms and formal knowledge protection mechanisms are present. These findings contribute to the emerging contingency perspective on coopetition and provide specific recommendations to managers that are involved in coopetitive endeavors

Sensemaking, sensegiving and absorptive capacity in complex procurements

This study explores and describes i) the nature of knowledge exchange processes at the frontline employee (FLE) level and ii) how FLE sensemaking processes affect buyer firm knowledge management practices in complex procurement contexts. The study utilizes an in-depth case analysis in the mining industry to identify a taxonomy of four buyer sensemaking investment/supplier collaboration profiles, to describe three sensegiving supplier roles (“confidence builders”, “competent collaborators”, and “problem-solvers”) and to explore how these evolve during complex procurement implementation. The study concludes with a conceptual model of the apparent linkages between sensemaking, sensegiving and buyer firm absorptive capacity in complex procurements. This study shows how micro-level (FLE) interactions influence macro-level knowledge integration (absorptive capacity) in the buyer firm. For managers, the study shows how the allocation of time and resources affects FLE-level knowledge exchange, with ultimate effect on buyer firm absorptive capacity