Abstract
Coopetition is paradoxical in that the simultaneous cooperation and competition can give rise to important synergies as well as tensions. To circumvent these tensions, scholars primarily suggest structural, separation-centred strategies. Such strategies are helpful, but incomplete, as total separation would not allow exploitation of the synergies that coopetition may offer. Based on an in-depth case study of a pioneering multi-company, cross-sector partnership, we explore how employees cope with the remaining tensions. Illustrating employees’ sense-making processes, we show how they build on the organisational and the boundary-spanning task contexts and develop paradoxical frames. Juxtaposing the competitive and collaborative logics, these frames shape the employees’ understanding of who they are (i.e. a nested identity) and what they should do (i.e. contextual segmentation). This juxtaposition allows the employees to navigate emerging tensions by adopting both logics (i.e. integrating behaviour) and by contextually prioritising one logic without ignoring the other (i.e. demarcating behaviour). These insights complement structural strategies with integrative, employee-centred ones and highlight contextual factors that promote such an integrative approach.
Coopetition, defined as the simultaneous cooperation and competition between organisations (Brandenburger & Nalebuff, 1996; Gnyawali, He, & Madhavan, 2008), has become a central strategic option in most global industries (Ritala, 2012). Scholars highlight its benefits regarding developing markets and new products, increasing efficiency in resource utilisation and improving a firm’s competitive position (Ahuja, 2000; Garrette, Castañer, & Dussauge, 2009; Rothaermel & Boeker, 2008; Gnyawali et al., 2008). However, managing coopetitive relationships is difficult, because they involve two diametrically differing interaction logics (Bengtsson & Kock, 2000; Das & Teng, 2000). The actors not only face conflicting organisational interests and hostility in a competitive setting, but they also have to develop a solid level of trust and friendliness to achieve their common goal.
These dual logics may create tensions leading to destructive competitive rivalry between the partners (Das & Teng, 2000) and emotional ambivalence within the organisation (Raza-Ullah, Bengtsson & Kock, 2014). Scholars suggest that such tensions can be mitigated by tailored partner-selection strategies (Gulati, 1995; Kim & Parkhe, 2009), equity joint venture structures (Das & Teng, 2000) and by restricting the collaboration’s scope to activities involving limited knowledge sharing (Oxley & Sampson, 2004) and/or which are customer distant. This involves separating the competitive and cooperative areas (Bengtsson & Kock, 2000; Walley, 2007). For example, organisations can create two teams – one to manage the competitive aspects of the relationship and the other to manage the cooperative aspects – or use an intermediary as a coordinator (Bengtsson & Kock, 2000).
While such strategies reduce the risk of coopetitive tensions emerging, they also narrow the synergistic benefits of coopetition. By completely separating competition and collaboration, the partner organisations can rarely exploit their market-related capabilities to achieve their shared goal; specifically they will not be able to exploit the knowledge of those employees working in the competitive part. However, developing new market segments and other market-related collaborative goals (Garrette et al., 2009; Rothaermel & Boeker, 2008; Gnyawali & Park, 2011) requires cross-fertilisation between the collaborative and competitive parts. In such situations, separation-based solutions are likely to be incomplete and how individuals address the remaining tensions will matter increasingly.
Specifically, how employees deal with coopetitive tensions – and how they are stimulated and enabled to do so – is decisive for the coopetition outcome. If the employees focus extensively on the competitive part, they jeopardise the partners’ trust basis (Dowling, Roering, Carllin, & Wisnieski, 1996). For example, they may refuse to share their specialised knowledge and assets that other employees require to achieve the collaborative goal. Conversely, if they ignore the relationship’s competitive part, for example by sharing sensitive knowledge, they risk undermining their company’s competitive advantage. Finally, being unable to make sense of the relationship, employees may face paralysing role conflicts (Raza-Ullah et al., 2014; Bengtsson & Kock, 2000), which will endanger the partnership’s success. Despite these insights into why coopetition is difficult, the question of how employees cope with the related tensions when integrating competitive and collaborative logics has received inadequate research attention.
Extant studies on managing role conflict suggest the use of organisational control (Floyd & Lane, 2000) and socialisation mechanisms (Ashforth & Saks, 1996), as well as emotional balancing at an aggregate group level (Huy, 2002). However, the dynamic working environment of coopetitive projects often limits the use of formal controls. Further, the employees’ boundary-spanning role requires them to integrate into both the corporate and project-based collaborative socialisation contexts. Moreover, in view of the employees’ direct interactions with competitors and the direct consequences of ignoring one part of the relationship, emotional balancing cannot be transferred to the group level.
Given the prevalence and strategic importance of coopetition, it is of both theoretical and practical significance to understand these employees’ sense-making and their behavioural responses to conflicting logics in order to neither harm one logic, nor cause individual paralysis. In this respect, insights from the paradox literature may provide a useful analytical tool. A paradox denotes tensions between ‘contradictory, yet interrelated, elements that exist simultaneously and persist over time’ (Smith & Lewis, 2011, p. 382). Dowling et al. (1996), Lado et al. (1997), Bengtsson and Kock (2000) and Raza-Ullah et al. (2014) have all introduced a paradox perspective on coopetition to explain the occurrence of tensions, but not their management.
To this end, studies on the micro-foundation of paradox provide a good starting point. They analyse how individuals – regardless of their organisational position – make sense of conflicting situations and develop novel synergies by integrating competing demands (e.g. Bartunek, 1988; Rothenberg, 1979; Suedfeld, Tetlcok, & Streufert, 1992). We draw on this literature when exploring how employees cope with coopetitive tensions and how they are stimulated to do so.
Acknowledging the increase in cause-related coopetition (reminiscent of cause-related marketing), we analyse this question in a multi-company, cross-sector partnership (CSP) in which four global logistics companies collaborate with humanitarian organisations to support disaster relief endeavours. In this CSP, corporate logistics experts switch between the competitive and collaborative environments. Their ad-hoc deployment from competitive businesses to the joint relief operations, their limited company contact during the deployment and high stress levels amplify the already difficult coopetitive situation.
Based on our case study, we identify tensions related to corporate profiling, knowledge sharing and role conflicts which can be understood as performing and belonging paradoxes (Smith & Lewis, 2011). Our findings suggest that the employees deal with these tensions by adopting both competitive and collaborative logics (i.e. integrating behaviour) and by contextually prioritising one logic without ignoring the other (i.e. demarcating behaviour).
They can do so because the organisational and the boundary-spanning task contexts enable them to frame – make sense of – the coopetitive relationship in terms of a nested identity conception and a contextual segmentation of what they should do. These two cognitive frames are at the centre of our analysis. They describe the ‘generalized cognitive structure, framework, or template people [here, the employees] use to impose structure on, and impart meaning to, some particular domain [here, the coopetitive relationship]’ (Bartunek, 1988, p. 138).
Given our narrow empirical setting, our arguments should be viewed as a midrange theory applied directly to cause-related coopetition. Such midrange theorising is typically viewed as an important step towards a more general theory (Merton, 1968). Later in the paper, we explore ways in which our findings might help inform other coopetition and paradox settings. With these boundaries in mind, our findings allow us to make two theoretical contributions.
Firstly, by introducing the employee perspective, our study reveals integrative approaches that complement the structural, separation-focused strategies and indicates ways to attenuate the conflictual side of coopetition without ignoring its synergistic potential. Specifically, when organisational control and socialisation (Floyd & Lane, 2000; Ashforth & Saks, 1996) provide helpful, but insufficient support, it is crucial that employees understand the competing, yet mutually beneficial, features of the coopetitive relationship. Our study suggests that, beside the support that the organisational context provides, the specific boundary-spanning task context also plays a critical role: On the one hand, it may expose differences between the collaborative and competitive environments that guide employees in their sense-making process. On the other hand, it may help the employees recognise the positive effect that their different corporate roots have on achieving their common goals.
Secondly, our findings are also of interest to the broader paradox discourse. Prior studies explored how top management teams (Smith, 2014) and middle managers (Huy, 2002; Lüscher & Lewis, 2008) address tensions through dynamic decision-making, paradoxical inquiry and emotional balancing. In contrast, our study suggests that employees might cope with tensions by building on reference points in the team interactions (i.e. developing a nested identity) and operational environment (i.e. contextually segmenting what they should do). Employees thus respond not only by leveraging both logics (e.g. Andriopoulos & Lewis, 2009), but also by countering the over-privilege of one logic at the complete neglect of the other (Smets, Jarzabkowski, Burke, & Spee, 2015). Although preliminary, these insights offer a starting point for expanding our knowledge on coping with paradox from the management to the employee level.
Coopetition as a Paradox
As a strategic option, coopetition is attracting increasing attention from practice and academia (Wilhelm, 2011). The underlying logic for adopting a coopetition strategy is usually to increase the size of the business pie by means of collaboration and to subsequently compete to divide it (Brandenburger & Nalebuff, 1996). The coopetition strategy builds on firm and/or product heterogeneity (Ahuja, 2000; Garrette et al., 2009; Rothaermel & Boeker, 2008). It is employed in situations of high market uncertainty, high network externalities and low competition intensity (Ritala, 2012).
However, managing coopetitive relationships is difficult, as coopetitive logics confront actors with a paradox (Dowling et al., 1996; Raza-Ullah et al., 2014): Their contradictory, yet interrelated, demands ‘seem logical in isolation, but absurd and irrational when appearing simultaneously’ (Lewis, 2000, p. 760). The idea behind competition assumes that individuals act to improve their company’s market position vis-à-vis the other players. The idea behind cooperation assumes that, by working together, actors can realise something that none of them can achieve unilaterally (Huxham, 1993) and which is also more important than their own profit maximisation.
At the partnership and organisational levels, failure to balance the two logics can lead to competitive rivalry and learning races (Kim & Parkhe, 2009) that harm the collaborative relationship. Alternatively, failure to balance the logics may lead to overconfidence, which may undermine the rarity and inimitability of a firm’s resources (Oxley & Sampson, 2004) as well as harm its competitive agility (Das & Teng, 2000). At the individual level, the coopetition paradox may trigger conflictive cognitions (Raza-Ullah et al., 2014). The basic cooperation orientation is a positive attitude (e.g. ‘we benefit one another’), whereas the basic competition orientation has a negative connotation (e.g. ‘we work against one another’) (Deutsch, 2006, p. 25).
While insights from the paradox literature help us grasp the challenges of coopetition (Dowling et al., 1996; Lado et al., 1997; Bengtsson & Kock, 2000; Raza-Ullah et al., 2014), we argue that they may also explain the strategies that actors use to cope with coopetitive tensions. Accordingly, accepting rather than denying that these tensions exist is the first step towards managing them and developing more creative response strategies (Clegg, Cunha, & Cunha, 2002; Lewis, 2000). These strategies range from structurally separating the opposing demands, deciding in which order to engage with them, to finding synergies that accommodate both (Poole & Van de Ven, 1989). Structural separation entails allocating opposing forces to different organisational units (Lavie, Stettner, & Tushman, 2010). Temporal separation entails prioritising one demand and subsequently switching to the other, while synergistic solutions integrate the seemingly opposing forces from a cognitive, sense-making perspective (Poole & Van de Ven, 1989).
Coopetition scholars have mainly described separation strategies by which actors organisationally divide the cooperation and competition logics between departments and in line with these departments’ customer proximity (i.e. competing on output activities and cooperating on input activities) (Bengtsson & Kock, 2000; Walley, 2007). Alternatively, an intermediate actor, such as a collective association, may regulate the collaboration (Bengtsson & Kock, 2000; Castaldo et al., 2010).
Furthermore, scholars suggest that managers should select their partners on the basis of their strategic interdependence (Gulati, 1995) and should avoid competitive similarity (i.e. in their geographical and product market coverage, technological expertise and overall strategic strength). While contracts to avoid tensions are difficult to specify, monitor and enforce, separate equity joint venture structures, the alignment of incentives and continued investment in relational efforts do provide benefits (Das & Teng, 2000; Kim & Parkhe, 2009). Likewise, restricting the alliance’s collaboration to activities that involve limited knowledge sharing helps avoid tensions (Oxley & Sampson, 2004).
Overall, separation-based strategies are considered to reduce discomfort. However, they also engender isolation and ignore the synergies inherent in conflicting demands (Andriopoulus & Lewis, 2009). If the partner organisations want to unleash the self-referential dimensions of coopetition and, for example, benefit from their market-based capabilities to achieve a common goal, they cannot completely separate the collaborative and competitive parts. Consequently, they need to complement structural separation with integrative solutions that help combine the competitive and collaborative components (Smith & Tushman, 2005).
Gnyawali and Park (2011, p. 652) have introduced the coopetitive capability concept to exploit such a synergistic approach: A firm’s coopetitive capability builds on its corporate strengths (e.g. its specialised resources and strong reputation) and helps attract and bind collaborators. However, it also encourages managers to continuously invest in competitive activities to balance the relationship. Moreover, Lado et al. (1997) stress that top management can create win-win situations if it embraces heterogeneity and tensions. Employees’ roles differ from that of executives (Besharov, 2014; Andriopoulos & Lewis, 2009), as they need to respond to the tensions’ operational dimension.
The broader discourse on role conflict provides a starting point to explain the employee perspective in more detail. For example, focusing on conflict and organisational support in strategic renewal, Floyd and Lane (2000) highlight that organisational controls help clarify and align role expectations. They signal which behaviours are appropriate and reduce opportunism, an example being rules, hierarchical authority and written documentation that standardise behaviour. Given the constraints of such mechanisms in dynamic environments, Floyd and Lane (2000) emphasise the value of socialisation, which conveys information through traditions and aligns members’ commitment through organisational identification and a common culture.
Similarly, Ashforth and Saks (1996) stress the importance of socialisation for coping with role conflict; that is, learning the beliefs, values, behaviours and skills necessary for new roles through a well-defined series of stages, including the assignment of mentors or role models. In the coopetitive setting, however, employees are part of both the collaboration and their company. They need to integrate into the collaborative context while being aware of its temporal boundaries and their duty to simultaneously represent their corporate affiliation and interests. Corporate socialisation can be helpful to such boundary spanners in terms of setting values and norms but also needs to provide leeway for autonomy in specific situations (Perrone, Zaheer, & McEvily, 2003). However, little is known about how employees make sense and act in these leeway areas when seemingly contradictory demands arise.
Methods
We address this gap with a case-study research design which enables an in-depth examination of settings too complex for survey or experimental research (Yin, 2003). Specifically, we analyse a multi-company CSP that combines four competitors’ core competencies and value propositions.
The empirical setting: The Logistics Emergency Teams as a cross-sector partnership (CSP)
Partnerships that unite actors from the public, business and civil-society sectors have become important for addressing social and development problems (Selsky & Parker, 2005; Seitanidi & Lindgreen, 2010), such as poverty, health, education and environmental challenges. Rittel and Webber (1973) call these problems ‘wicked’. They are difficult to define, are interlinked in a web of other problems, and standard solutions rarely apply to them. By bringing together organisations from different sectors and their respective competencies and resources, CSPs may enable innovative solutions to meet such challenges (Kolk, Van Tulder & Kostwinder, 2008; Selsky & Parker, 2005).
CSPs mostly develop from a unilateral resource transfer to partners co-creating transformational societal change (Austin & Seitanidi, 2012), which calls for many actors, including competitors, to collaborate (Thomas & Fritz, 2006; Peloza & Falkenberg, 2009). Coopetitive challenges may arise in the process. Separate equity joint ventures, which are believed to facilitate coopetition, are mostly not feasible in view of the civil-society and public partner organisations’ legal constraints (Rivera-Santos & Rufin, 2010). On the other hand, CSPs are prone to conflicts, as they encompass strong emotional engagement (Sloan & Oliver, 2013) as well as social values and goals (Di Domenico, Tracey & Haugh, 2009).
We analyse the management of coopetition in a cause-related setting by exploring how four leading logistics companies deploy pro bono logistics resources and their employees in a joint operating structure called the Logistics Emergency Teams (LET). The LET support the disaster-response operations of the Logistics Cluster of humanitarian organisations, which the World Food Programme (WFP) leads (Van Wassenhove & Stadtler, 2013). Relief operations are inherently wicked in that they involve complex, interdependent processes and engage multiple actors (Tatham & Houghton, 2011). In a traditional humanitarian setting, coopetition relates to inter-NGO relationships: Humanitarian organisations cooperate to help each other support those affected by disaster, while simultaneously competing for financial resources (i.e. donations) and media attention (Kovács & Spens, 2010; Tatham & Houghton, 2011).
However, we focus on four companies whose business operations, such as their logistics services and integrated solutions, compete on the global logistics market. As Table 1 shows, these companies have an overlapping strategic positioning, country presence and similar core strengths. Their global reach, networks and, especially, their sophisticated logistics capabilities form the baseline of their competitive advantage (i.e. their value-creating strategy; Barney, 1991). In order to develop such sophisticated logistics capabilities, these companies build on their outstanding technical equipment and their motivated, skilled and solution-oriented employees who adapt flexibly to their customers’ needs.
Company profiles.
Under the LET, the companies provide logistics assets (e.g. warehouses, trucks, containers and forklifts), logistics services (e.g. airlifts, trucking, and warehouse and customs management) and logistics specialists (e.g. airport coordinators, customs experts and warehouse managers). During their deployment, these logistics experts work as an integrated team. For example, in response to typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in 2013, 20 logistics experts from the four companies offered on-site support to facilitate efficient supply chains and transportation services for the WFP shipments to reach the impacted areas.
The deployed employees have to manage the coopetitive relationships under difficult conditions. Their deployment is realised within 48 hours of a WFP request and, once on the ground, they have limited contact with their company due to the disaster-struck telecommunication systems. The employees thus have to use their discretion to manage any tensions, building on common sense and their prior organisational input. These case characteristics together with the dynamic context facilitate theory development by rendering the studied patterns more visible than they would be in other settings (Eisenhardt, 1989).
Data collection
Seeking to understand how employees handle the coopetitive relationship and related tensions, we also acknowledge contextual factors which influence these employees’ sense-making processes, such as the organisational support and the specific boundary-spanning task context. To this end, we collected data from several sources from 2010 to 2014: semi-structured interviews, notes from a working session with key CSP participants and archival data (see Table 2). We initially focused on developing a general understanding of the LET and the challenges involved (2010–2012); thereafter we sought more specific insights into the employees’ handling of coopetition on the ground (2013–2014). We examined 52 published and internal documents, including partnership presentations, standard operating procedures, collaboration principles, deployment articles, blogs and the deployed employees’ accounts. These documents helped us develop a general understanding of the CSP drivers, implementation mode and challenges. We also focused on messages from the companies’ CEOs in press releases and articles, as these publicly documented quotes were likely to have reached the delegates. The blogs and employee accounts then helped us decode the employee perspective.
Data sources.
We gained specific insights through 28 interviews, including those with each company’s LET lead (L) who coordinated the LET work from the respective headquarter and with deployed employees (D). The World Economic Forum, which supports the partnership, facilitated our access to the LET leads. Our interviews with the leads began with an overview of the partnership, the corporate motivations for engaging in it and the partner relationships. In line with our interview guideline, we then addressed the mechanisms used to help the employees handle the coopetitive relationships and emerging tensions.
We asked the leads to connect us with the deployed employees. In line with our objective to secure an independent, objective position in the field (Pratt, 2009), the leads introduced us as researchers interested in learning more about the deployment and allowed us to coordinate our subsequent actions. The deployed employees (‘LET delegates’) are among the best trained in commercial supply chain operations and offer humanitarian organisations valuable support (Tomasini, 2011). We chose to primarily interview those delegates who had been deployed in relief efforts in response to typhoon Haiyan in 2013.
In view of the relief operations’ delicate nature and the devastated, resource-scarce local environment, we had to forgo real-time observation. Our presence on the ground would have allowed us to examine the employees’ behavioural responses to coopetitive tensions, but their sense-making processes to a lesser extent. Specifically, it would be inappropriate to ask relevant questions in this volatile and work-intensive context in which every minute counts.
However, to better understand the context, we started our interviews by asking the delegates to describe their deployment experiences in detail. Building on these insights, we directed the discussion towards their understanding of the LET and the particularities of having a multi-company approach. Finally, we returned to the tensions that they had mentioned when describing the multi-company approach. Four delegates subsequently sent us the diaries they had kept during their deployment.
To obtain an external viewpoint, we talked to the World Economic Forum and the WFP managers. We also had the opportunity to conduct a group interview with the LET leads and WFP participants on the CSP’s success factors. This interview highlighted that transparency, dialogue and personal bonds were the building blocks of the CSP’s success. We also attended a three-hour working session with the corporate LET leads, two WFP and Logistics Cluster representatives as well as a representative from the World Economic Forum. After a presentation on the WFP and the Logistics Cluster’s current situation, the participants reviewed their most recent deployments. They identified the best practices and openly addressed the challenges, such as the need to streamline their communication processes.
We audiotaped and transcribed all the interviews and asked follow-up questions via phone or e-mail when clarification was required. We then compared one of the participants’ responses with those of the others, but also with the published and internal documents that we had analysed. We proceeded with our data analysis in parallel with our data collection and engaged in four iterative stages (see Table 3) to systematically move from the raw data to the theoretical interpretation (Gioia, Corley, & Hamilton, 2013).
Data analysis: Stages of analysis.
Data analysis
In a first stage, we wrote a case study incorporating the various data types in order to exploit the rich content and better understand the CSP’s functioning, main drivers and challenges. Three critical, interrelated dimensions caught our attention: (1) the participants’ openness regarding the tensions, (2) the important efforts invested in developing support mechanisms that acknowledged the specific context and (3) the employees’ reflections on and responses to tensions as well as their engagement in coopetitive relationships.
We then deepened our analysis of these three dimensions. We used the ATLAS.ti research software to record, group and regroup data segments via codes, which allowed us to identify recurring patterns. Initially, we engaged in open coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). We sorted the interviews and archival documents into data incidents, thereby identifying sets of sentences or paragraphs that conveyed a coherent point about our three key dimensions.
To identify signs of tensions, we analysed the interview statements, employee blogs and diaries, focusing on expressions indicating the restrictions, challenges and contradictions inherent in the competition/company’s affiliation and collaboration. The terms ‘but’, ‘challenging’, ‘in a way’, ‘complex’, ‘to tell the truth’, ‘at the same time’ and ‘on the other hand’ are examples of such language indicators. To identify the organisational support mechanisms and contextual messages, we used insights from articles and press releases, reports, the group intervention and the interviews with the different LET participants. Finally, to capture the delegates’ cognitive frames and responses to tensions, we built on their interviews, diaries and blogs. Since individuals’ words and actions indicate their cognitive frames (Smith & Tushman, 2005), we paid particular attention to their expressed thoughts and actual responses to tensions. In these, we searched for passages juxtaposing the delegates’ competitive and collaborative logics or providing a statement with a restriction.
To move from mass descriptive codes to fewer and more encompassing ones, we turned recurring data incidents into first-order codes (Van Maanen, 1979). A final set of 27 codes was obtained after several iterations based on the question ‘is this data incident similar to that one?’, which ensured internal consistency within the first-order codes, and on the question ‘are these data incidents different from those?’, which avoided the first-order codes overlapping (Jarzabkowski, 2008).
In a third stage, we regrouped multiple first-order codes into more conceptual second-order dimensions (see Table 4 and Figure 1). Drawing on the coopetition literature, we regrouped recurring statements indicating latent or emerging tensions under ‘corporate profiling’ (Kovács & Spens, 2010), ‘knowledge spillovers’ (Kovács & Spens, 2010) and ‘role conflict’ (Raza-Ullah et al., 2014). In analysing the coopetition context, we built on paradox studies that depict integrative contexts (Gibson & Birkinshaw, 2004; Ghoshal & Bartlett, 1994).
Second-order dimensions and representative data.
Data structure.
We firstly identified four recurring elements related to enabling mechanisms in the organisational context (i.e. top management offering messages, training, rules and mentoring). Moreover, we identified patterns in the boundary-spanning, collaborative task context (i.e. the social cause and interaction with other stakeholders) that helped the employees make sense of the coopetitive situation.
Similarly, we grouped statements on paradoxical frames (Bartunek, 1988): The employee insights highlighted a shared LET mind-set that showed appreciation for the different corporate roots. We grouped related statements under the theoretical category ‘nested identity’ (Ashforth, Rogers, & Corley, 2011). This concept describes embedded identities that balance a sense of inclusiveness with a sense of exclusiveness (Ashforth et al., 2011). The delegates also expressed a cognitive frame centred on the specific task context: They contextualised the competitive and cooperative logics, thereby underscoring the different working realities and the different missions. We regrouped related statements under ‘segmentation’, a concept that allows actors to maintain distinct logics by fluidly assigning their enactment to different localities (Smets et al., 2015).
Statements indicating actions through which the delegates aligned their corporate and collaborative roots, but also reaped mutual benefit were identified as ‘integrating’ (Bartunek, 1988); that is, behaviours that reinforce and enable mindful synergies between the logics (Smith & Tushman, 2005). Secondly, we grouped data indicating how the delegates set contextual priorities, while carefully controlling their behaviour, under the concept ‘demarcating’. Demarcating involves countering the tendency to over-privilege one logic in order to not completely neglect the other (Smets et al., 2015).
We then compared these data incidents to search for similarities and differences in the adopted frames. For example, we found differences in how the delegates built on the organisational context and how they balanced their corporate and LET identity. Specifically, the corporate roots in the nested identity were more explicit in some accounts than in others. However, despite these differences in the components, patterns of both were present across the employee sample. We also compared our employee data on when tensions became sufficiently salient to require a response. While all the delegates were highly aware of and had to cognitively cope with latent tensions, our data on behavioural responses centred specifically on those delegates who seized emerging opportunities to make a difference.
In a fourth stage, we integrated our data into a framework. We built on Bartunek’s (1988) reframing process and followed Glaser’s (1978) advice to use a conceptual template to integrate theoretical categories. We also involved outside researchers to review the resulting framework.
Findings
Elaborating on our findings, we firstly discuss how the companies set the boundaries of the collaborative work, describe the collaborative task context and depict how the companies sought to prepare the delegates for the LET. We then illustrate how the delegates experienced latent and emerging tensions when working within the LET and developed integrative responses.
Setting the boundaries
To clarify and guide their joint pro bono work, the companies had created a partnership Steering Committee with a lead from each company and the WFP. These leads, generally managers from the companies’ corporate social responsibility departments, ensured preparedness for joint relief efforts and managed the CSP at a strategic level. For example, they had set precise criteria for deploying assets and employees in the LETs (e.g. natural disasters with a sudden onset affecting more than 500,000 people). They also limited the deployment to six weeks and excluded employees involved in a current bidding process with the UN, humanitarian or government agencies involved in LET operations.
In the event of a disaster, the WFP had to officially request resources from the LET. If the companies agreed to support the project, the Steering Committee, in coordination with the WFP, proceeded with the operations planning, including the coordination of human resources, assets, tasks, timeframes, locations and the exit plan. The LET would not affect the parallel business operations.
Task context – acknowledging the different operational environment
The CSP was set up to be mutually beneficial: The WFP and the Logistics Cluster received the companies’ pro bono logistic support ‘at a time when lives are in the balance’ (CEO Company IV). In the words of a WFP representative, the companies ‘provide additional and complementary resources in areas where we are not very well represented. We thus save a lot of time and move forward’. In turn, the companies could demonstrate the importance of logistics to the humanitarians, governments and communities.
Secondly, the CSP provided the companies with opportunities to develop new skills, insights and relationships: ‘The humanitarian system has to work with very few resources and it is very creative in finding new solutions. We can learn a lot with regard to efficiency and working in dynamic situations’ (L3). This was particularly important, because the companies sought to expand their operations in disaster-prone emerging markets. Thirdly, in their daily operations, humanitarian organisations also worked with logistics companies on commercial contracts. Hence, the companies hoped that, in the long run, the CSP would help extend their business solutions’ overall market share.
However, the immediate relief operations strongly differed from the companies’ ordinary logistics environment. Not only did they involve resource constraints and the need for improvisation, but the humanitarian community also scrutinised the delegates’ words and actions: ‘In the field, the deployed employees are part of our team; they live with us’ (S2). The hard-earned relationships could not be put at risk: ‘We work hand in hand with the WFP without misusing their name for things that do not really reflect the purpose of our deployment’ (D8). The operations’ urgency reinforced the delegates’ commitment to lend their specialised experience to help: ‘In the field, you are talking about people’s life at that point […]. We are here to make a difference’ (D11).
Organisational context – preparing the delegates for the LET
Since the LET’s creation in 2005, the CEOs of the four companies set the tone from the top and repeatedly highlighted the value of the corporate expertise: ‘The efficient and coordinated deployment of logistics expertise in the first phases of an emergency can be crucial in providing medicine, food and shelter to minimise human suffering’ (CEO Company I). However, the CEOs also indicated related challenges: ‘We should not compete when it comes to saving lives’ (CEO Company III) and acknowledged that ‘there are going to be bumps, but we should learn from each other and act in good faith’ (CEO Company II).
To ensure that everyone took the benefits and risks of the LET seriously, the leads had prepared CSP-specific booklets and asked the delegates to participate in a yearly LET training. The training focused on the engagement parameters, the humanitarian principles and the safety and security measures. During the training, they also discussed the collaboration guidelines: acting in good faith, demonstrating transparency and maintaining continuous dialogue, collaborative mind-sets and a willingness to learn. Furthermore, media releases would be coordinated with the humanitarian partners and, as a delegate explained, ‘if the WFP or the local authorities asks us [the delegates] for commercial freight or services, we channel it [this request] to the LET leads’ (D5). The leads would as a team decide whether a specific company should provide a quote, or whether all (or none) of them should do so. The same channelling applied to additional pro bono requests during a disaster.
The training was vital to ensure effective deployment and to leverage the partnership spirit. A delegate acknowledged: ‘For me, it all started with the training where I met the people from X, Y and Z; all strong competitors in normal life. It was amazing to see them coming together as one for a disaster’ (D1). At the time of the analysis, about 100 employees had completed the training sessions, including simulation exercises in which mixed teams had to manage decision-making processes and operational excellence in a variety of difficult disaster relief situations.
To offer individual support, the LET leads acted as mentors and, during these discussions, leveraged the top management’s LET messages and emphasised the rules of engagement. ‘Consider yourself a secondee providing them with an operational report and the corporate office with an authoritative one’ (L3) they told the employees. ‘If humanitarians ask you to provide additional commercial services, or a quote, you need to contact us immediately’. This personal briefing was especially important for delegates who had not participated in joint training before being deployed. Although this was exceptional, unexpected local relief needs could exceed the pool of trained delegates available.
Overall, by directly interacting with their competitors, the delegates had to handle potential sources of tensions: balancing corporate and group profiling, avoiding undesired knowledge spillovers and managing role conflicts.
Corporate profiling
‘There are a couple of situations that can produce competition’ (D11). Specifically, since the companies also worked with humanitarian actors in their normal business, ‘there is also another side – the WFP and our account managers’ usual procurement of international transportation services, for which the WFP pays. But [for] the LET [this] is [a] pro bono [service]’ (D5). This constellation raised the question of how to deal with business offers and related opportunities: ‘If you are solicited with a business request, the procedure says you should give it to the LET. But apart from any official request, by being there, the humanitarians definitely see where our strengths are’.
This raised questions such as: Should the delegates emphasise their corporate roots by wearing clothes with their corporate logo, or should they be recognised by wearing the LET shirts? A delegate recalled: ‘I was the only one with a [company X] shirt – but it was the first time I was deployed and I didn’t know how it worked’ (D5). Similarly, when asked to provide advice to optimise the relief processes, they felt honoured to help the humanitarian actors with their corporate experience. But to what extent could they indicate their corporate and/or LET affiliation?
Corporate profiling – frames and behavioural responses
Our data suggest that the delegates navigated their corporate and LET origins by focusing on their interdependence and benefits: Their company affiliation was the source of their expertise, while the LET structure allowed them to make a difference on the ground. This integrative pattern appeared in several instances, for example, in terms of giving advice. ‘One request was to provide the humanitarians with a layout that would optimise their repacking process. […] I felt honoured to help with my experience with [company X], but we also wear multiple hats. Here it was about being a LET member from [company X]’ a delegate explained (D5).
Navigating the delegates’ corporate and LET origins also appeared more subtly in choices about what to wear: ‘I first wore my company shirts. But […] once one person had the LET shirt with all the logos, most of us wanted to have one as well’ (D9). Others preferred to emphasise their company affiliation: ‘We brought our company uniform and always wore it during the operations’ (D7). However, the same delegate outlined that ‘I considered myself as [company X] and the LET. I always asked myself what if I were the one living in the devastated area. I thought I should do more – also for the company’.
Whereas dress codes could be regulated to some extent, the corporate and LET origins had to be navigated, especially when unexpected opportunities arose to enhance the relief operations. One particularly telling example is the organising of a training for trainers. A delegated recalled: ‘At some point, I realised that an official training would really add value. So, I thought about organising a training on warehouse operations, health and safety issues and inviting people in supervisory roles. This was not planned’ (D1). In collaboration with the WFP, the delegate thus designed a certificate-based train-the-trainer programme for 53 participants from government organisations, humanitarian agencies and private companies.
But how could he promote this training? ‘I have been providing trainings at my company for years – we have a very strong health and safety culture. And here I was as the LET: We work together to help other people. I mostly built on my company knowledge, but I was also grateful for the WFP and LET support. (…) So, although we mainly used material from my company and they also sent safety equipment, it was not a corporate training. Rather, the training was delivered by one of their personnel and offered by the LET, of which I was also part.
I tried to show that: I presented myself as a LET member from [company X] and gave a presentation with one slide explaining the LET and all the companies involved. So they knew that I was from [company X], a member of the LET, not just from [X]’. He aligned his corporate and LET roots in another way by wearing ‘shirts with the LET logo and the logo of the rest of the companies, and I wore my company trousers. I wore this on purpose to explain that the LET was the one providing the training and, as it was about safety, the trousers explained the attitude’.
Knowledge spillovers
When the delegates combined their expertise in air operations, fleet management, warehouse operations and other areas of logistics, they gained insights into each other’s competencies. A delegate recalled: ‘[Customs clearance] is an expertise of most of the LET participants. In the first meeting, each company brought its own customs broker to provide advice. It was quite interesting to see how each handled the customs clearance process differently, and how each party knew a different contact at the Customs Bureau. When we left the building, we talked about it since, hey, we didn’t know that. In a commercial situation, these different customs brokers would not have been there’ (D2). The question the delegates faced was whether they should share and build on these insights in their normal business operations.
On the ground, the delegates also had to assess at what point it was better not to share, for example, customer-sensitive or otherwise competitive insights. Charged with the sourcing of trucks, warehouses and data that the humanitarians required, a delegate explained: ‘I built on my local market knowledge and connections with vendors. But there are boundaries; I wouldn’t share all details about vendor relationships and other contacts. It’s this line between revealing contacts, yes, but not contract terms or commercial insights’ (D2).
Knowledge spillovers – frames and behavioural responses
Our findings suggest that the delegates sought to draw a line between knowledge sharing and careful retention by reflecting on the differing working realities and missions. This allowed them to set priorities without harming the competitive or collaborative dimension of their relationship. For example, they mentioned: ‘We are competitors right now, but when it comes to providing help after huge disasters and the WFP comes into play, we work together. […] If you work in a silo, you won’t get far in the field’ (D5). Similarly, they believed that ‘the advantage of having several companies is that they all have their own strengths and assets. You can pull these together to provide better solutions’ (D2).
Consequently, distinctions such as: ‘In the disaster, we work together to help other people. When you are back in normal life, competition is also back’ (D1) recurred in the delegates’ statements and encouraged them to set priorities. A telling example of setting such boundaries are the delegates’ discussions after the long working-days: ‘Even when eating together, or in the evening, we did not talk about the business side of what we do within the LET companies’ (D3). ‘We talk a great deal about the scenario where safety and security are the most important. In these kind of topics, there is no competition, but participation and sharing of knowledge in terms of what is the best way of keeping to the rules of engagement’ (D8).
In view of potential overlaps, they felt: ‘The best was not to avoid discussions, but knowing that you can point to someone else in the firm if it [a discussion] relates to the commercial part’ (D5). For example, those delegates attending the Cluster meetings distributed business cards for urgent relief requests. However, they tried to avoid commercial discussions upfront by indicating that ‘if you have a separate inquiry, like a commercial one, you can let us know, but we will inform the LET leads and our commercial contacts’ (D2).
Another telling example of how the delegates defined the boundaries of their knowledge sharing in line with the urgent needs was related to coordinating the WFP’s requests for trucking services and warehousing space: ‘Since the LET companies here are all involved in the same line of business, it was a bit tricky to decide who will do what and how much’ (D2). ‘Initially, I didn’t know how we would collaborate. But when we met, we agreed that we had to pick the best and fastest solution. So we reached out to our vendors – we allowed each one [delegate] to use his own approach – and I wouldn’t know how each one [delegate] contacted his vendors. Once the vendors agreed, we shared this information with the other LET members. So there is sharing and discretion: You communicate what is necessary but not things that are sensitive’.
Role conflict
Finally, the LET delegates were well aware that ‘of course, we are all competitors in normal life’ (D1). The integrated team work therefore confronted them with the tensions’ relational dimension. For instance, how should they consider themselves? How should they engage in these relationships, given that ‘there is a point in time when all those people that I met as LET members will be competing for business side by side with me’ (D8)? The often small logistics market in the affected areas meant that the competitive and collaborative worlds overlapped. A delegate stressed: ‘When we meet up with the competitors, we mostly know each other’ (D5). Initial feelings of unease emerged especially among delegates who had not received training: ‘We would work with other logistics companies – to be honest, that was not something we were very familiar with. We had to see how to go about it’ (D2).
During a deployment in Japan, scepticism surfaced to a worrying extent: The local business culture made talking to their competitors very awkward for the delegates – even under the LET umbrella. The LET leads took the emerging tensions seriously. ‘When a company’s employees have misgivings, we discuss it as a group.’ (L3). These tensions had to be managed carefully: ‘If just one company showed a possible conflict of interest, it would adversely affect the entire programme’ (L3).
Role conflict – frames and behavioural responses
In light of the delegates’ approach to group work, our evidence indicates the benefits of their training and briefing for their integration into the LET: ‘Actually, I thought it would be challenging to work with competitors. We are used to competing. In the briefing, they told me that the people with whom I’d be working also understand that we can work together as different entities to provide support – whatever support we can provide’ (D6) a delegate explained. Another delegate emphasised that the deployment ‘required removing the logistical competition mind-set that we have and working as a team, contributing and applying what we learned in the training to be more helpful, be more attentive and to be more patient in everything we do. […] During the LET deployment, the most important is the ability to get things done, act within the rules of engagement […], to unite in order to face all these sacrifices – and just be there to help’ (D8).
What the delegates perceived as uniting the LET community was their shared commitment to help and their shared experience with relief operations, which differed greatly from their normal business: ‘We were living together and shared all these experiences. This made us stick together. I had the opportunity to take a room in a hotel, but decided to remain with the other LET members: We slept in the same tents, cooked and ate together. It created a very dynamic group: Every morning we sat together, discussing the tasks of the day. From there we moved on to the warehouses and helped the people’ (D1).
Furthermore, the delegates considered the LET a specific subgroup contributing to the public and humanitarian actors’ relief work: ‘We are, nevertheless, all corporate logisticians’ (D1). At the same time, they acknowledged the boundaries of this shared identity: They considered themselves LET members, but still identified with their respective company. Their different company roots allowed them to bring complementary expertise to the field. ‘You are still an [X]ler through and through. My years at [X] gave me an invaluable set of skills that I was able to use for the greater good. I am grateful for the opportunity that my company has afforded me to make this possible. I learned quite a lot – not just about the business aspects, but also about myself. I think that makes you a better employee within [X]’ (D9). Likewise: ‘As [company X] staff, we have a couple of important standards. Each time I saw something not in line with these standards, this reminded me of my [company X] background and why I was there and what I had to do to improve the process’ (D1).
Our findings suggest that the delegates built on the specifics of the situation and the social mission in order to define the collaborative boundaries: ‘We all knew that at a certain point we would go back to our companies. But we focused on the present and making a change together’ (D1). ‘When we return to our own office, we are definitely in our world of business and competition. We have to be to grow. The focus is on business and dealing with the customer. But when we step out of the office, we are friends. We do everything we can to help’ (D8). A cause-based friendship and a shared passion to help remained: ‘I am still in contact with [X] and [Y] right now to catch up what is going on in the disaster area. It is like having new friends for this mission’ (D1).
Summary
Overall, our findings indicate two patterns in the delegates’ approach to and balance of competing logics. Their responses to situations that called for positioning their corporate or group origins in interactions with the other stakeholders or within the LET illustrate the first pattern. The delegates sought to focus on the interdependence and benefits of their corporate and LET origins. In developing such an understanding of their origins, they built on their common, but nonetheless distinct, corporate logistics expertise, the alarming social needs and their shared passion.
Secondly, the way in which the delegates responded to situations calling for balancing knowledge sharing and retention outlines a second pattern. They reflected on the different working realities and missions underlying their competitive and collaborative work. This allowed them to identify contextual priorities, for example, knowledge sharing for the social good, while carefully setting boundaries in order not to harm their company’s competitive position.
Towards a Framework of Integrative Employee Responses
We now integrate our findings to establish a framework of integrative employee responses. As Figure 2 shows, the delegates experienced three tensions which can be understood as performing and belonging paradoxes. They dealt with them through integrating and demarcating behaviours. In this respect, the organisational and boundary-spanning task contexts enabled them to frame – make sense of – the LET in terms of their identity and what they could/should do (i.e. a ‘nested identity conception’ and ‘contextual segmentation’). We elaborate on this analysis with insights from the paradox literature and the reframing process (Bartunek, 1988).
Framework of integrative employee responses.
Setting the boundaries
Our case study shows how structural separation (e.g. Bengtsson & Kock, 2000) helps limit the area in which tensions can arise. For example, the LET leads defined clear deployment criteria to set the boundaries between pro bono collaboration and competition. They also excluded those individuals from the LET who were involved in bidding processes with humanitarian or public organisations. However, a total separation would prevent the integration of the companies’ logistics capacities and manpower during urgent disaster relief efforts. Further, the delegates highlighted that the competitive background added value to the collaborative part and vice versa: ‘Similar and different core competencies are very helpful when supporting the humanitarians’ (D6). In respect of their competitive business, they recognised that ‘we learn to deal with sacrifices, develop a lot of capabilities that help us cope with any surprises that hinder our daily work and broaden our perspectives’ (D8). What might initially have looked like a simple temporal separation of collaborative and competitive logics, called for integrative approaches at the employee level.
Coopetitive tensions
Specifically, the deployment exposed the delegates to sources of tensions discussed in the coopetition literature as corporate profiling, knowledge sharing and role conflict (Kovács & Spens, 2010; Raza-Ullah et al., 2014). They had to find a way to make sense of and respond to these tensions without harming the collaborative or competitive work.
Linking to the broader paradox discourse, the tensions related to knowledge sharing may be understood as performing paradoxes (Lüscher & Lewis, 2008; Smith & Lewis, 2011). These tensions imply that the corporate and collaborative objectives have contradictory demands – whether to share or protect knowledge. Conversely, tensions arising from whether the delegates should promote or conceal their corporate roots and whether to create personal bonds/identify with the LET or maintain their corporate identity, include features of a belonging paradox (Smith & Berg, 1987; Lewis, 2000). Although such paradoxes cannot be ‘solved’ (Lewis & Smith, 2011), the delegates found ways to constructively cope with the latent and emerging tensions.
Considering the coopetition context
Our findings suggest that the coopetition context with its organisational and boundary-spanning, task-related components played a key role in helping the delegates cope with the tensions. The organisational preparation played an important role, because during their training, the delegates generally realised that the coopetitive reality called for a new understanding of their roles and relationships. This created initial discomfort (e.g., ‘I thought it would be challenging’ (D6)). This was alleviated by the leads explaining why and when the delegates had to adopt a collaborative mind-set. They also built on the CEOs’ messages, which highlighted the joint social duty and the setting of conditions for business opportunities to emerge in the future. Moreover, the leads referred to the behavioural guidelines and emphasised that when working with the humanitarian community, compliance with these guidelines was critical to not endanger the hard-earned trust with this community.
Discussions with the LET leads helped clarify the delegates’ roles and gave them the confidence that, if they were to face behavioural uncertainty or conflicts, they could count on their mentors. This support is similar to external facilitators’ role, as described in the paradox literature, regarding clarifying demands and response options (Lüscher & Lewis, 2008; Jay, 2013). However, instead of being external, the mentors’ corporate affiliation helped the delegates strengthen their corporate identity. Insights from the paradox micro-foundations support these insights. They stress that by showing support (Lindenberg & Foss, 2011) and establishing conditions that enable ‘both/and’ thinking (Bartunek, 1988), managers can provide the initial stimulus that makes sense of ambiguous events (Cha & Edmondson, 2006), thus enhancing the motivation for a new common mission.
Overall, the organisational context comprises mechanisms similar to the socialisation and control mechanisms discussed in the literature on role conflict (Floyd & Lane, 2000; Ashforth & Saks, 1996). However, as the LET interactions occurred outside the companies’ organisational boundaries, organisational control and socialisation had a limited influence. Here, we identify the importance of the boundary-spanning task context, which was characterised by a different working reality and the normative and social clues (Ghoshal & Bartlett, 1994) that the collaborative mission provided.
For example, in their interaction with the humanitarians, the employees saw how their work helped the overall relief processes. A shared work motivation focused on helping others drove these processes (see Lindenberg & Foss, 2011). Likewise, the daunting social cause, the sense of urgency and the resource scarcity offered a working reality different from the corporate business operations. This context induced the employees to increase their performance and helped them give personal meaning (Ghoshal & Bartlett, 1994) to the way in which the LET contributed to social and business goals.
In summary, the coopetition context as a combination organisational support and the boundary-spanning task environment offered an important frame of reference (Weick, Sutcliffe, & Obstfeld, 1999; Floyd & Lane, 2000) for the delegates to make sense of the competitive and collaborative logics as well as to find ways to integrate them.
Generating integrative frames through janusian thinking
Specifically, our findings suggest that the delegates made sense of the collaborative demands without forgetting about the relationship’s competitive part, because they developed two frames as cognitive templates. The first frame surfaced mainly in situations relating to the delegates’ corporate roots and role conflict, showing how they developed a renewed concept of belonging and identification: On the one hand, the LET’s corporate logistics expertise drove the delegates to identify with it, because this separated them from other relief workers. Moreover, in statements relating to the LET, the delegates emphasised their shared passion to help and their strong team spirit on the ground.
On the other hand, the LET identity also includes a limiting, company-oriented dimension. An awareness of the delegates’ different corporate roots, the rules of engagement and the unique deployment character. The strength of this dimension varied, but was present in all the employee accounts. For example, while all the delegates considered their deployment as an obligation to represent their company as best as possible, some referred more often to their company when describing their deployment experience than others. Likewise, some indicated that they wore shirts with their company logo, but in the same breath explained that they considered themselves a LET member. Together with expressions of gratitude for the deployment opportunity and the valuable corporate skills that their company had allowed them to develop, the delegates viewed their corporate identity as a distinguishing element (e.g., being ‘an [x]-ler through and through’).
These insights indicate the creation of a nested identity. It comprises a shared LET element, which expresses who the delegates are as a group and how they present the group to external audiences, but also endorses and integrates the different corporate identities that they simultaneously uphold. Fiol, Pratt and O’Connor (2009) support this pattern by highlighting that integration across diverse social identities occurs through the explicit and positive differentiation of identities. Centred on ‘who we are’, this frame allowed the delegates to consider themselves part of the LET and of their company.
Conceiving dualities, here the delegates’ corporate and collaborative identities, as operating simultaneously side by side is the crux of paradoxical framing, often also called janusian thinking (Rothenberg, 1979). Specifically, the conception of simultaneity is an important step towards integrating oppositions and antitheses (Rothenberg, 1979). In this regard, integration is not the same as combination: When combining oppositions to form another entity, the original entities no longer retain their individual properties. In contrast, in an integration process, the original components’ properties are still noticeable, operative (Rothenberg, 1979) and encompass the integrated whole.
This can be best explained in analogy to the Taoist yin and yang conception (Rothenberg, 1979; Smith & Lewis, 2011; Lewis, Andriopolous, & Smith, 2014). The yin and yang forces are identical, but opposed. Including an element of the other force, they operate in dynamic accord. Similarly, the delegates perceived their corporate and collaborative origins as opposed to one another, but also as synergistic and interrelated within a larger system.
The second frame, mainly expressed in relation to knowledge sharing, pinpoints elements of the competitive roots in the LET reality and vice versa: It contrasts the different working realities and juxtaposes the common social and the corporate business missions. Specifically, the delegates contextualised the different missions through reference points such as ‘on the ground’ and ‘in times of disaster’ versus ‘back in the office’ and ‘normal life’ and deduced each reference point’s priorities. In line with this segmentation frame, their primary purpose during deployment is to help the humanitarian organisations and the victims.
Consequently, in analogy to the yin and yang conception, these reference points separate the collaborative and competitive logics in terms of the working realities and missions (e.g. ‘helping society’ vs. ‘business as usual’). On the other hand, each reality encompasses an element of the other logic in that the two missions are considered interrelated. This duality allows the delegates to offer their ‘expertise in logistics (…) to provide the best solution on the ground’ (D9) and to use the experiences they gained in this context to better support their company’s regular business (e.g., ‘we learn a lot…’; D9, D10).
Integrating frames into behaviours
Building on these frames, the delegates sought to circumvent tensions. However, in situations providing opportunities to make a difference on the ground (e.g. providing operational advice, offering training or coordinating contributions), the tensions became salient and required behavioural responses. The paradoxical frames created a foundation from which the delegates could derive ‘complex’ behavioural responses (see Denison, Hooijberg, & Quinn, 1995).
Firstly, we see behavioural complexity in the way they incorporated the nested LET identity into their actions. For example, when providing advice or offering training, the delegates started introducing themselves as employees of company X, a member of the LET, or sometimes also the other way round. Likewise, they frequently wore clothes exhibiting both logos. This highlights a shift from an initial company-centric identity to a nested identity, which allows them to integrate and leverage their collaborative and corporate roots.
Secondly, segmentation through the contextualisation of logics helped the delegates reflect on their actions, incorporate the behavioural guidelines and seek contextual priorities. As the challenges in the task environment called on their corporate expertise, they were also reminded of the competitive reality, for example, not to share insights into their company operations or customer relationships.
Confronted with emerging tensions when, for example, sharing corporate expertise on customs clearance, process standards or logistics networks, the delegates sought to act in line with the collaborative logic without causing competitive risks or damage. Knowledge sharing was strongly encouraged, especially with the humanitarian partners, to enhance the current and future operations’ efficiency and effectiveness (see also Tomasini, 2011). In turn, the segmentation frame emphasised that knowledge spillovers had to be avoided beyond the humanitarian mission, especially sensitive business insights, which the vendor information-related example illustrates.
By applying this frame, they ‘made a point not to talk business’ and kept vendor-related information to the minimum when sharing knowledge. They also avoided excessive ‘self-profiling’ to decrease the risk of undesired knowledge spills and corporate promotion. These behaviours can be characterised as demarcating responses; that is, setting priorities, but countering the tendency to over-privilege one logic over the other (Smets et al., 2015).
Overall, these insights indicate integrative solutions in which the employees – stimulated by the organisational support and a specific operational environment – developed a nested identity and contextualised their competitive and collaborative logics. These paradoxical frames helped them navigate coopetitive tensions by adopting both logics and contextually prioritising one logic without impairing the other.
Conclusions
The management literature stresses the important benefits that coopetition provides (Ahuja, 2000; Garrette et al., 2009; Rothaermel & Boecker, 2008). Focusing on how to manage the associated tensions, scholars mainly suggest structural, separation-based strategies (Bengtsson & Kock, 2000; Oxley & Sampson, 2004; Walley, 2007). These strategies may be sufficient if competitors collaborate on support activities, such as administration, procurement and waste management (Bengtsson & Kock, 2000). In turn, we contribute to this body of knowledge when separation-based strategies prove insufficient, for example, when competitors need to build on their market-related core competencies to collaborate on research and development (Cassiman, Guardo & Valentini, 2009; Oxley & Sampson, 2004) or market-development activities.
Integrative approaches towards managing coopetition
Our study indicates that, in the latter case, separation-based strategies help narrow the area in which tensions may occur, yet a full separation would thwart the synergistic potential that coopetition offers. Building on the paradox literature (e.g., Smith & Tushman, 2005; Lewis & Smith, 2011), we show that such settings call for integrative approaches which acknowledge coopetition’s conflictual and synergistic dimensions.
Coping with the remaining tensions is therefore an important responsibility of the employees involved. They have to interact with the competitors’ members, have to assess what knowledge to share and what not, and have to balance their company and group identifications and promotion. In this context, our study extends the coopetition discourse by moving from why coopetition is challenging for employees (Bengtsson & Kock, 2000; Raza-Ullah et al., 2014) to how they embrace these challenges.
While prior coopetition research assumes that individuals can act in accordance with only one interaction logic at a time (Bengtsson & Kock, 2000, p. 411), our study indicates that employees – stimulated by contextual factors – can align competing logics by means of a ‘both/and’ reasoning. This allows them to navigate tensions by integrating competitive and collaborative logics and demarcating them by contextually prioritising one without ignoring the other.
These employee-related insights redefine our understanding of the complexity involved in coopetition and also enrich the coopetition capability concept. Gnyawali and Park (2011) introduce this concept as a firm’s capability to generate and appropriate greater common benefits through coopetition. We suggest that, in addition to a firm’s coopetition experience, its reputation, resources (Gnyawali & Park, 2011) and its top management’s strategies (Lado et al., 1997), its coopetitive capability depends on its employees’ capacity to develop integrative frames. Our research indicates that frames centred on a nested identity and a contextualisation of different, yet interrelated, logics not only help employees uphold collaboration by avoiding role conflicts and excessive competitive logics, but also help them protect their firm’s competitive advantage. This implies that coopetitive capability should be viewed as a meta-level construct that needs to be developed across the organisational levels involved in the coopetitive relationship (i.e. top management, middle managers (here the LET leads), and operational employees (here the LET delegates)).
By analysing the kind of messages that the organisational and boundary-spanning task contexts conveyed, our second contribution relates to the coopetition context. Extant literature has mainly considered the context by identifying factors that promote a coopetition strategy, such as short production cycles, technological convergence and high R&D costs (Gnyawali & Park, 2009; Luo, 2007). Alternatively, the literature specifies which business activities the cooperative and competitive parts of the relationship involve (Bengtsson & Kock, 2000; Cassiman et al., 2009; Oxley & Sampson, 2004). We add another dimension to the coopetition context, namely its impact on how employees manage coopetitive tensions. Our evidence suggests that the specifics of the coopetition context can be leveraged to stimulate integrative approaches.
Firstly, in terms of the corporate messages, rules, training and mentoring, the organisational context strengthens the employees’ corporate bonds and their understanding of the shared goal. If the organisational context stresses the interrelation of competitive and collaborative logics and clarifies the contextual priorities, it may stimulate related sense-making processes. However, we also find that the dynamic working environment and the employees’ boundary-spanning roles limit the support that the organisational context, and especially its socialisation and control mechanisms (Floyd & Lane, 2000; Ashforth & Saks, 1996), can provide for coping with role conflicts.
We find that the boundary-spanning task context complements the organisational support in the employees’ endeavour to cope with role conflicts: In our study, the employees perceived the social cause and the collaborative mission as noble and different from their normal competitive business. The collaborative mission, whether a social, service or innovation-related one, and the employees’ perceived contribution to it (Grant, 2008) may increase their work motivation. For example, recognising their contribution to the social cause through their corporate expertise made the employees in our case study appreciate their company, which in turn reminded them of the company-oriented, more competitive logic. Further, the different working realities facilitated the contextualisation of the logics and the setting of priorities.
Moreover, the employees knew that the non-business partners (as potential future customers) would witness misconduct. Instead of controlling and coordinating the companies’ interaction, which scholars suggest are third-party roles (Bengtsson & Kock, 2000; Castaldo et al., 2010), the humanitarian actors increased the social and moral pressure that prevented misuse of the partnership for unilateral benefits. These insights help explain coopetition as a multifaceted concept and stress that the contextual factors should also be taken into account.
As mentioned in the introduction, our findings should be interpreted as a midrange theory (Merton, 1968), i.e. one developed within the boundaries of cause-based coopetition, but with the potential to explore theoretical arguments at a more general level. Consequently, future studies could explore whether employees develop similar frames in coopetitive settings not related to a social initiative. We assume that similarities may occur in other path-breaking product and market-development projects (e.g. pharmaceutical or technological innovations), which also tend to involve strong, value-related missions and require the coopetitive team to interact with other stakeholders.
Encouraging the employee perspective in paradox studies
Within the boundaries mentioned, our study may also be of interest to the broader paradox discourse. Specifically, recent studies highlight that paradoxical tensions tend to cascade throughout the organisation, which makes their management a shared responsibility of actors across all levels (Andriopoulos & Lewis, 2009; Jarzabkowski, Lê, & Van de Ven, 2013). From this perspective, executives and project characteristics can influence employees by setting the context, clarifying the processes and encouraging alternating between the opposing working modes (Andriopoulos & Lewis, 2009; Besharov, 2014). But what happens in situations that confront employees with unexpected tensions for which there are no specific guidelines?
Prior studies have explored how top management teams (Smith, 2014) and middle managers (Huy, 2002; Lüscher & Lewis, 2008) address such tensions by means of dynamic decision-making, paradoxical inquiry and emotional balancing. Our study suggests that employees build on reference points in the team interactions and operational contexts. Focused on the tensions emerging from the paradoxes of belonging and performing, the responses we identify involve integration through the synergistic leverage of competing logics (e.g., Andriopoulos & Lewis, 2009; Schmitt & Raisch, 2013), but also demarcation (Smets et al., 2015). In contrast to the differentiation logic discussed in the paradox literature, demarcation does not foster isolation (e.g. Smith & Tushman, 2005), but comprises an integrative feature. While prioritising one logic, it counters the tendency to over-privilege it, thus preventing the complete neglect of the other logic. These insights are preliminary ones, but offer a starting point to explain paradox management when actors are less concerned with managerial tasks, such as delegation and creating organisational contexts, and more concerned with team interactions and operational decisions.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the editor Frank den Hond and the three anonymous reviewers for providing helpful guidance in developing this paper. Further, we wish to express our gratitude to Achim Schmitt, Alexander Zimmermann, and Sebastian Raisch who provided thoughtful comments on prior versions of this paper.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.