Knowledge sharing in a coopetition project team: An institutional logics perspective

• Author: Mickaël Geraudel,David Salvetat,Sophie d'Armagnac
• Date: 01 May 2019
• Published date: 01 May 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/jsc.2263

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Knowledge sharing in a coopetition project team:

An institutional logics perspective

*

Sophie d'Armagnac

1

| Mickaël Geraudel

2

| David Salvetat

3

1

Department of Corporate Social

Responsibility and Human Resources,

Toulouse Business School, Toulouse, France

2

Centre for Research in Economics and

management (CREA), University of

Luxembourg, Luxembourg, United Kingdom

3

ESSCA-Business School, Campus of

Bordeaux, France

Correspondence

David Salvetat, ESSCA-Business School,

Campus of Bordeaux, 1 rue Lakanal - BP

40348, Angers 49003, France.

Email: david.salvetat@essca.fr

Abstract

Cooperation between firms is often addressed from the perspective of relationship

organizing; however, we know little about people's working-level engagement in col-

lective action during interfirm projects. Focusing on cooperation between rival firms

(coopetition), we explore how knowledge can be shared among participants. We

offer insight into the management of interorganizational projects that are viewed as

temporary organizations.

1|INTRODUCTION

In highly competitive environments, rivals often cooperate closely to

produce high-value technologies or products (Gnyawali & Park, 2009).

This collaborative relationship among competitors is known as

“coopetition.”It can be understood as simultaneous cooperation and

competition between firms (Bengtsson & Kock, 2014). To maximize

the benefit of cooperation, workers must share embedded knowledge,

which is the tacit and practice-based information that is gained

through close interaction and group work. Embedded knowledge shar-

ing is critical for successful cooperation (Axelson & Richtnér, 2015;

Bosch-Sijtsema & Henriksson, 2014; Enberg, 2012; Janowicz-

Panjaitan & Noorderhaven, 2009; Leufkens & Noorderhaven, 2011).

However, in coopetition, lingeringfeelings of rivalry from past competi-

tive habits can inhibit such cooperation. In this situation, the gover-

nance principles of coopetition are not sufficient to ensure that

knowledge sharing occurs (Janowicz-Panjaitan & Noorderhaven, 2009).

Therefore, when rival firms implement a joint project, project team

members from rival firms may struggle to work together and share

knowledge atthe level required to ensure successof the project.

We investigate how these types of joint project teams engage in

coopetition. Specifically, we assess how they develop knowledge-

sharing practices in a working context that features social complexity

(i.e., staff from rival firms working together) and in a provisional con-

text (i.e., the coopetition project as a temporary organization). In the

working context, we explore the social dimension of coopetition,

which can generate incompatible prescriptions for knowledge sharing

(Enberg, 2012). These conflicting prescriptions stem from the multi-

plicity of influential logics in the working context (Greenwood,

Raynard, Kodeih, Micelotta, & Lounsbury, 2011; Thornton, Ocasio, &

Lounsbury, 2012). In the temporal context, we explore how people

work together and share knowledge during a discrete period of

coopetition. By drawing on Kakavelakis and Edwards (2012) and the

framework by Emirbayer and Mische (1998), we can explore how peo-

ple perceive this experience of cooperation according to three tempo-

ral orientations: past, present, and future. A past orientation means

being focused on usual habits. A practical evaluation orientation

focuses on immediate needs, whereas a projective orientation encour-

ages changes (Emirbayer & Mische, 1998). The different mindsets

regarding willingness to cooperate, sharingknowledge, and competition

intertwine withthese temporal orientations.We build on this work and

examine the microlevel approaches to interfirm coopetition projects

and thus complement the macrolevel approaches. We examine the

social depth andtemporality of a coopetition project and consider how

individuals address multiple social influences and how they adapt to

sustain the coexistence of these influences(Barley & Tolbert, 1997).

We present a case study of a coopetitive project to answer the

following research question: how are knowledge-sharing practices

built in a project with team members from rival organizations? This

case study involves a joint project of two leading competitors in the

European space industry, Astrium and Thales Alenia Space (TAS).

From 2001 to 2009, a project team comprising an equal number of

*J.E.L. classification codes: D7, D83, L22.

DOI: 10.1002/jsc.2263

Strategic Change. 2019;28:217–227. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jsc © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 217