Micro-coopetition: conceptualizing and operationalizing coopetitive managerial decision-making over time—a game theoretic approach

The purpose of the paper is to provide a conceptualization and an aligned game-theoretic operationalization of the dynamic coopetitive managerial decision-making process. The proposed two-step sequential game uses existing game theoretical constructs but combines them in a unique way. One of its important positive features is its capacity to make the performance implications of all potential coopetitive decisions in a relationship episode explicit, together with the interplay among them. The lack of such a feature has been recognized as a severe limitation of extant literature, hampering further theoretical and methodological development. The proposed solution gives insights into how moment-by-moment managerial decisions unfold over time and possibly result in disequilibrium states, generating tension. Managerial attributes play a key role in effectively managing such moments, it is suggested. Based on the proposed operationalization, behavioral experiments can be designed through which future empirical research can develop appropriate data sets and test the widely hypothesized roles of these attributes, which can result in more reliable and generalizable research results. Besides the theoretical and empirical value of the proposed conceptualization and operationalization, the paper is of value to decision makers, as it makes the internal complexity of the coopetitive strategizing and its inherent interdependencies explicit, providing practical insights into this complex phenomenon.