Coopetition at Society Level: A Scale Validation

Abstract

The researchers study coopetition in various levels such as individual, intraorganizational or interorganizational. However, there is a gap in coopetition studies at the society level, at the meta-level. We consider Social Coopetition as the capacity of the society's stakeholders to work together, oriented to create social value to generate solutions to economic, social and environmental problems, providing local development based on cooperation and social commitment. This research has twofold objectives, i) to define Social Coopetition and propose its dimensions, ii) to validate a scale to measure coopetition at society level. An expert's panel analyzed 101 variables extracted by the literature review, and they selected 75 variables grouped in 7 dimensions as a qualitative pre-validation. In the sequence, we performed an exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis to validate the scale. Our findings indicated 12 dimensions could express the social coopetition level: social asymmetry, perceptions of individual and collective benefits, socio-political characteristics, communication, competition, social competence, social commitment, previous experience, social governance, interdependence, technological and innovation level and cultural similarity. The findings provide a scale to monitor the social coopetition through 48 variables. Our results bring a novel in the coopetition field and have theoretical and practical implications. The findings explore a new coopetition level. Also, it provides a tool for municipal management to improve the coopetition strategies performance toward the generation of social value.