Identifying and Explaining a Model of Coopetition: A Case Study of SAIPA Group

Abstract

One of the significant challenges of companies is achieving a competitive position and promoting competitiveness. Coopetition, which means the simultaneous cooperation and competition of companies, is a strategy which has attracted the attention of many companies for the last two decades. The strategy has been used to achieve, maintain and promote competitive positions. Iranian automobile companies have also used this strategy following their global competitors. However, as some studies indicate, it has not been modeled in Iran’s automotive industry yet. Indeed, it is not obvious what type of coopetition model is implemented in Iran. This paper aims to identify and explain a coopetition model in Iran’s automotive industry using qualitative methodological tools and the grounded theory. The statistical population of this study is SAIPA Group, and the sampling method is theoretical sampling. Until theoretical saturation was reached, 15 experts and managers of this group were interviewed, and more than 10 documentaries were reviewed. The results showed that the coopetition pattern in SAIPA has two main parts. The first part includes coopetition drivers which involve two general categories of internal and external drivers based on resources and capabilities, and the second part deals with the type of cooperation between automakers and competitors.

Keywords

• inter-firm relationships
• grounded theory
• competition
• cooperation
• coopetition