Inter-firm coopetition and innovation in industrial clusters: the role of institutional support

Abstract

PurposeInnovativeness is crucial for industrial cluster firms to gain sustained competitive advantage. This study aims to investigate the effects of inter-firm coopetition on firm innovativeness within a cluster and examines the moderating role of institutional support.Design/methodology/approachThis research adopts an empirical survey method using multi-source data from 181 industrial cluster firms. Regression is used to test the hypotheses of this study.FindingsThe results show that cooperation and constructive conflict promote firm innovativeness, while destructive conflict is detrimental to firm innovativeness. Moreover, the study also finds that cooperation interacts with both types of conflict to affect firm innovativeness, where cooperation and constructive conflict interact negatively on firm innovativeness, while cooperation and destructive conflict interact positively on firm innovativeness. In addition, institutional support weakens the effects of cooperation and destructive conflict on innovativeness, respectively, but has no significant moderating effect on the relationship between constructive conflict and innovativeness.Originality/valueThese findings enrich the current research on coopetition. The interaction effects of cooperation and both types of conflict on innovativeness deepen the concept of coopetition and responds to the call to further explore the interaction effects within coopetition. The moderating role of institutional support fills a gap in the empirical research on the role of institutional factors affecting coopetition on innovation and also provides valuable suggestions for firm managers and governments in industrial clusters.