Open Innovation and Coopetition: Toward Coopetitive Open Innovation

While the open innovation literature has always acknowledged the competitor as a source of innovative knowledge — i.e. to increase the breadth of open innovation practices — competitors have been relatively neglected relative to other sources such as universities, suppliers, customers, and employees. Growing research in open innovation includes more and more of this counter-intuitive partner and acknowledges that the drivers and management of the open innovation practice with competitors are specific relative to the one with a non-competitive partner. In parallel and independently from the open innovation literature, the research on coopetition and coopetitive innovation has grown and explored when, why, and how a competitor is a relevant partner for innovation. These frameworks develop by the coopetition literature brought into the open innovation research generate new insights and a whole research agenda. The main one is: coopetitive open innovation defined as open innovation with competitors embracing a "coopetitive mindset" and specific managerial principles (i.e. cooperation and competition should be simultaneously pursued and the competition dimension should not be reduced).