Chapter 1: Introduction

Coopetition is a word that combines both “competition” and “cooperation.” As long as knowledge is essentially valued in an organization, the contribution of two vital elements in coopetition value creation is evident: knowledge management and intellectual capital. By critically evaluating these, we discuss ways in which coopetition and innovation involve knowledge thereby increasing the performance of interorganizational units.

Coopetition and knowledge dynamics contribute additional insights to knowledge management by exploring and analyzing the interactions between business players and the knowledge that is being created, shared, and absorbed within an organization as well as across the business ecosystem. The level and depth of entrepreneurial innovation in knowledge economies are affected by socioeconomic, technological, and environmental factors. Regional and international companies face the necessity to adjust to the dynamic changes of the current global, even political, context. Innovation is acknowledged as a desirable and empirically verified outcome of coopetition within and across firms. Processes of knowledge creation, differentiation, and evolution are indispensable elements for businesses. As a result, coopetition and knowledge dynamics play a significant role in creating new global opportunities in the entrepreneurial world.