Coopetitive service innovation: the role of geographical proximity, innovation focus and customer cooperation

Purpose: Previous research on the impact of coopetition on innovation performance has provided contradictory results. Thus, this study aims to fill the gap by gathering data to explain the impact of coopetition on service innovation, considering the partners’ geographical proximity, innovation focus of the firm and cooperation with customers.
Design/methodology/approach: A logistic regression model is applied, and four hypotheses are tested using data from the Eurostat Community Innovation Survey 2018. The cross-sectional data set consists of 13,723 firms innovating services in selected European Union countries.
Findings: The findings verify the importance of coopetition for service innovation. However, the coopetitive partners’ nationality does not have a significant impact. Furthermore, the integration of customer cooperation with coopetition enhances service innovation. Hence, competing partners seem not to avoid cooperation in output functions near the customers. To coopete in innovation is risky, but the findings reveal that partners develop novel services through coopetition, intended to produce a higher return to compensate for the risks. Originality/value: Presumably, this is one of the first large-scale studies examining the impact of coopetition on service innovation in a European context. This study indicates that coopetition amplifies service innovation, thus reducing the divergent views on the impact of coopetition on innovation performance. It responds to the request for more research on the context of coopetitive innovation by explaining how the firms’ geographical proximity, innovation focus and cooperation with customers impact their service innovation performance.