Strategizing niceness in co-opetition: The case of knowledge exchange in supply chain innovation projects

Document Type

Article

Source of Publication

European Journal of Operational Research

Publication Date

1-1-2015

Abstract

© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Abstract In this paper, we take a novel approach to address the dilemma of innovation sharing versus protection among supply chain partners. The paper conducts an exploratory study that introduces factors affecting a firm's optimum supply chain innovation strategy. We go beyond the conventional Prisoners' Dilemma, with its limiting assumptions of players' preferences and symmetry, to explore a larger pool of 2 × 2 games that may effectively model the problem. After classifying firm types according to collaboration motive and relative power, we use simulation to explore the effects of firm type, opponent type, and payoff structure on repeated innovation interactions (or, equivalently, long-term relations) and optimality of 'niceness'. Surprisingly, we find that opponent type is essentially irrelevant in long-term innovation interactions, and focal firm type is only conditionally relevant. The paper contributes further by introducing reciprocation of strategy type (nice versus mean), showing that reciprocation is recommended, while identifying and explaining the exceptions to this conclusion.

ISSN

0377-2217

Publisher

Elsevier

Volume

244

Issue

3

First Page

845

Last Page

854

Disciplines

Business

Keywords

Decision analysis, Game theory, Innovation, Knowledge sharing dilemma, Simulation

Scopus ID

84926420693

Indexed in Scopus

yes

Open Access

no

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