An Empirical Study on Determining the Attitudes of Small and Medium Sized Businesses (SMEs) Related to Coopetition

Coopetition is a term that includes cooperation and competition simultaneously. Although coopetition is generally used by larger companies in the past, lately small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) realized that it has some advantages for them. Coopetition is implemented by SMEs and enables many benefits to these businesses. SMEs that implement coopetition strategy get into some markets easily by collaborating with each other in different areas and gathering rare and complementary resources. SMEs, which engage in competitive strategy share knowledge that may be a key source of competitive advantage. In this context, the purpose of the present study is to explain coopetition in a theoretical way and to determine attitudes of small and medium sized businesses dealing with coopetition. Data was obtained from one of the top managers of 52 small and medium sized businesses operating in Kayseri (Turkey). Firms are selected from different sectors. According to result of analyses, SMES that participated in the survey have a positive attitude related with the coopetition strategy. That is, they assess the collaboration with competitors, positively. Also, trust is seen as the most important factor in relationship with competitors. Secondly, commitment dimension is considered important. Mutual benefits dimension has the least mean score comparing with other dimensions of coopetition.