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This chapter focuses on the coopetition features of tourism and specifically of tourism destinations. Because of the typical features of tourism destinations, coopetition might be a particularly important theme in the literature on tourism. However, the number of tourism studies that have focused on, or at least mentioned, coopetition is surprisingly small. Regarding tourism destinations, co-location causes different forms of coopetition situations, which are not very common in geographically diffused industries. Furthermore, the basic idea of one joint tourism product, such as the experiences of a tourist in a tourism destination, forces the (competing) suppliers of services in the resort to cooperate. Co-location causes a situation in which the competing firms in the area have joint branding and marketing activities. Destination marketing organisations are an important form of coopetition activities in tourism. In addition to co-location, seasonality is one of the specific features of coopetition in tourism destinations. This study combines the outcomes of several publications and other empirical materials about coopetition in tourism.

Among world’s economies, the circular economy (CE) has become popular especially in the European Union and China, which opens several opportunities for sustainability leaders to gain a first-mover advantage and, consequently, to pursue organizational sustainability and growth. In spite of public policy support, since CE often requires entrepreneurial innovation among complex networks of companies, most companies are still learning how to manage knowledge dynamics at the inter-organization level. The chapter starts by defining the key characteristics of CE and identifying the peculiarities in terms of inter-firm cooperative and competitive relations, which help in delineating contributions from the green supply chain literature. The second section shows – through the discussion of term maps – how multiple- and inter-disciplinary streams of research are increasingly linked by hard (i.e., information communication technologies based) and soft (i.e., relational and organizational) aspects of knowledge management. The third section provides a discussion on key hard and soft factors that characterize four knowledge dynamics, i.e., knowledge creation, knowledge storage, knowledge transfer, and knowledge sharing that can improve the adoption and integration of circular processes within inter-organizational coopetitive strategies. Particular attention is here given to the cross-analysis of outcomes from theoretical papers, case studies, and quantitative empirical researches that contribute to shaping relations between internal and external factors that might play as predictors of a successful implementation of CE principles. Finally, the last section concludes with recommendations for improving organizational and managerial capabilities to manage inter-firm knowledge dynamics while pursuing CE objectives in international business environments. Beside this guidance for practitioners, directions for further research are suggested for each pillar of the emerging conceptual model.

Sharing services increasingly extends beyond intraorganizational concentration of service delivery. Organizations have started to promote cooperation across their boundaries to deal with strategic tensions in their value ecosystem, moving beyond traditional outsourcing. This chapter addresses two research questions geared to the challenge of interorganizational shared services (ISS): why would organizations want to get and remain involved in ISS? And: what are the implications of ISS for (inter)organizational value creation?

The conceptual chapter reviews literature pertaining to ISS from public, commercial, and nongovernmental sectors. ISS is understood as a multistakeholder organizational innovation. In order to analyze ISS and conduct empirical research, we developed a taxonomy and research framework.

The chapter shows how ISS can be positioned in value chains, distinguishing vertical, horizontal, and hybrid ISS. It outlines ISS implications for developing business models, structures, and relationships. Success factors and barriers are presented that epitomize the dynamic interplay of organizational autonomy and interorganizational dependence.

The research framework offers conceptual ideas for theoretical and empirical work. Researchers involved in ISS studies may adopt strategic, strategic innovation, and organizational innovation perspectives.

ISS phases are distinguished to focus innovation management — initiation, enactment, and evaluation. Furthermore, insights are provided into processes and interventions aimed at making ISS a success for participating organizations.

Cross-sectoral perspective on ISS; taxonomy of ISS; research framework built on organization and strategic management literature.

Several parameters set economic growth, and one of them is innovation. Thus, it is vital to realize the proper motives for a firm to innovate. The key actors in innovation systems – such as firms, research institutions, academia, and standards developing communities – affect knowledge ­creation, contribute to its diffusion and use, and set the global innovation capacity. Additionally, the market-driven and the worldwide open paradigm may aid to ensure stable and reliable integration, interactive abilities, and active collaborations to drive international innovation and its ­concepts forward. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an international organization that assembles principles to produce such standards as mentioned above, so as to ensure a prosperous future globally. Global cooperation, openness, interaction, and the generation of motives for innovation are some of the principles that WTO embraces, and all of these are to benefit humanity from free market and trade growth, leading to triumph through innovation. Overall, this chapter examines the significant role of WTO in trade policy uncertainty and how innovation is ensured and stimulated by WTO regarding the specific case of the Chinese market.

Markets-as-networks (MAN) theorists contend, at least tacitly, the significance of business relationships to the firm – that is, business relationships contribute somewhat to corporate survival or growth. One does not deny the existence of significant business relationships but sustain, in contrast to the consensus within the MAN theory, that relationship significance should not be a self-evident assumption. For significance cannot be a taken-for-granted property of each and every one of the firm's business relationships. The authors adopt explicitly a critical realist meta-theoretical position in this conceptual paper and claim that relationship significance is an event of the business world, whose causes remain yet largely unidentified. Where the powers and liabilities of business relationships (i.e., relationship functions and dysfunctions) are put to work, inevitably under certain contingencies (namely the surrounding networks and markets), relationship effects ensue for the firm (often benefits in excess of sacrifices, i.e., relationship value) and as a consequence relationship significance is likely to be brought about. In addition, relationship significance can result from the dual impact that business relationships may have on the structure and powers and liabilities of the firm, that is, on corporate nature and scope, respectively.

In this study, we explored the behaviour of two Canadian multinational companies operating in the context of Arab Spring events in Egypt in 2011.

We conducted a fine-grained analysis of 171 documents of various secondary sources to understand the behaviour of the two firms in Egypt between 25 January 2011 and 30 June 2012.

We suggest that corporate diplomacy should be viewed as portfolios of interdependent actions rather than reactions to discrete events. We also underline the importance for organisations to have a proactive, holistic and inclusive corporate diplomacy strategy, with the objective to secure and balance both explicit political/legal licence and implicit social licence.

We intentionally focused our empirical analysis on two Canadian firms operating in the same host country and belonging to the same industry. It would be useful to carry similar research in different organisational and institutional contexts.

When radical new approaches to entrepreneurship are sought, they almost invariably return to the origin point of conventional firms. This chapter, however, will show that radical entrepreneurship, far from being the purview of capitalist enterprises, can be found in abundance in the cooperative sector. Cooperatives, which are democratic economic enterprises owned by members on a one person, one-vote basis, are a hotbed of new economic thinking. The ways in which cooperatives use advances in technology to create more democratic, decentralized, and egalitarian economic relationships stands in stark contrast to the monopolizing and centralizing tendencies of conventional firms. This chapter will show that cooperatives are both a worthy adversary, and potential ally of, conventional capitalist businesses in moving the field of entrepreneurship into areas that will be of greatest benefit to humanity.

While organization theories acknowledge the influence of specific assets on dependence and increasingly represent the latter as a structure of mutual dependence (dependence of A on B and dependence of B on A), there is, to the best of our knowledge, no empirical test concerning the impact of specific assets on a structure of dependence. Our chapter aims to fill this gap. It is all the more original in that it considers a case study where dependence changes sides according to the characteristics of the transaction. We examine the dependence between Chilean exporters and European importers when trading fresh produce. Such dependence originates with the need for just-in-time coordination and compliance with a compelling demand in a context of high price uncertainty.

Using a unique dataset from international trade in fresh produce between Chile and the rest of the world, we justify the use of a concentration sales ratio as a proxy for dependence and test the influence of a variety of specific assets on the side of dependence by using both categorical and dimensional approaches. Original findings show that certain transaction attributes have a strong influence on the side of dependence. In particular, the higher the frequency and the level of specific assets such as volume, niche varieties, and joint sales with other products, in the transaction, the greater the likelihood of a higher ratio of dependence for the importer rather than the exporter. Conversely, in the event of low levels of specific assets and less frequent operations, dependence tends to be greater on the side of the exporter.