Coopetition In The Global Book Industry: The Case Of Amazon.Com’s Evolution

Coopetition (collaboration between competing firms) is a phenomenon which has recently captured a great deal of attention due to its increasing relevance to business practice. The current research on coopetition is still short in explaining how the potential advantages of coopetition strategy can be realized over time as a part of individual firm’s business model. In order to approach this gap, this study focuses on understanding how coopetition strategy of a firm evolves over time, and how such strategy is executed through the business model of Amazon.com. We find evidence on three distinct coopetitive business models: 1) Amazon Marketplace 2) Amazon Services and 3) Collaboration between Apple and Amazon on digital text platforms. As a result, we put forward several propositions on how the potential advantages of coopetition strategy can be reached by involving competitors within the firm’s business model. Thus, the results increase the understanding on how business models can be designed to include competitive partners, and how a firm can capture value through such arrangements. Overall, the study contributes to the extant coopetition research by showing the aspects inherent in business models that can help to realize potential advantages of coopetition strategy.