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This descriptive, non-experiment case study addresses the little-studied topic of martial arts tourism within the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK; i.e., North Korea) to determine if it is a form of non-entertainment tourism.

The current research focusses on a single subject (Singaporean female; 36 years of age (at time of interview); Taekwon-Do 4th degree black belt) who travelled to the DPRK three times to practice the Korean martial art Taekwon-Do. After the initial contact, a questionnaire was used and direct interviews via Skype and Facebook were performed. A broad thematic discourse, as well as analysis of the subject’s travel and practice notes and photographs from her stay in the DPRK, were also incorporated into the findings.

The subject developed new Taekwon-Do skills, which permitted her to obtain higher Taekwon-Do ranks as well as enriched her personality and changed certain conceptions. Self-realization and self-improvement through martial arts are the dominant motives of martial arts tourism. Therefore, the subject’s motivation confirms martial arts tourism can be a variation of non-entertainment tourism.

This research is hindered by the standard case study limitations: it is difficult to generalize this study’s results to the wider DPRK population, the interviewee’s and researchers’ subjective feelings may have influenced the findings, and selection bias is definitely a factor because of the study’s population being a single female of non-DPRK origin.

As one of the first studies on DPRK martial arts tourism and practice, this research examines where research on the DPRK and martial arts tourism intersect. It is thusly unique in providing new insights into the DPRK’s intention for its tourism industry, as well as Taekwon-Do, arguably its most marketable cultural asset.

Coopetition, namely, the interplay between cooperation and competition, has received a good deal of interest in the business-to-business marketing literature. Academics have operationalised the coopetition construct and have used these measures to test the antecedents and consequences of firms collaborating with their competitors. However, business-to-business marketing scholars have not developed and validated an agreed operationalisation that reflects the dimensionality of the coopetition construct. Thus, the purpose of this study is to develop and validate a multi-dimensional measure of coopetition for marketing scholars to use in future research.

To use a highly cooperative and highly competitive empirical context, sporting organisations in New Zealand were sampled, as the key informants within these entities engaged in different forms of coopetition. Checks were made to ensure that the sampled entities produced generalisable results. That is, it is anticipated that the results apply to other industries with firms engaging in similar business-to-business behaviours. Various sources of qualitative and quantitative data were acquired to develop and validate a multi-dimensional measure of coopetition (the COOP scale), which passed all major assessments of reliability and validity (including common method variance).

The results indicated that coopetition is a multi-dimensional construct, comprising three distinct dimensions. First, local-level coopetition is collaboration among competing entities within a close geographic proximity. Second, national-level coopetition is cooperation with rivals within the same country but across different geographic regions. Third, organisation-level coopetition is cooperation with competitors across different firms (including with indirect rivals), regardless of their geographic location and product markets served. Indeed, organisation-level coopetition extends to how companies engage in coopetition in domestic and international capacities, depending on the extent to which they compete in similar product markets in comparison to industry rivals. Also, multiple indicators were used to measure each facet of the coopetition construct after the scale purification stage.

Prior coopetition-based investigations have predominately been conceptual or qualitative in nature. The scarce number of existing scales have significant problems, such as not appreciating that coopetition is a multi-dimensional variable, as well as using single indicators. In spite of a recent call for research on the multiple levels of coopetition, there has not been an agreed measure of the construct that accounts for its multi-dimensionality. Hence, this investigation responds to such a call for research by developing and validating the COOP scale. Local-, national- and organisation-level coopetition are anticipated to be the main facets of the coopetition construct, which offer several avenues for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to help develop the understanding of the nature of coopetition (collaboration as well as competition) and is set in the context of a Taekwondo organisation.

Interviews were undertaken with 25 instructors in various clubs within New Zealand’s “International Taekwondo” (ITKD) together with 25 students and supplemented with triangulation against secondary data such as websites and media reports.

The findings suggest that coopetition can be seen from various perspectives in order that the organisation as a whole benefits. Specifically, while the ITKD is a not-for-profit firm, individual clubs may compete for revenue from students joining them as opposed to rival clubs. However, clubs collaborate in various way such as once registered, students can train free at rival clubs and resources are to some extent pooled so the ITKD as a whole benefits, e.g. sending competitors overseas and bringing in senior people to undertake a promotion grading.

The contribution is to offer insights into the nature of coopetition at the sports marketing/entrepreneurship interface by suggesting that the potential paradox of collaboration and competition can be explained by considering the benefits to an overall organisation as opposed to individual clubs within it.

Small sports clubs are the life-blood of particular communities, even though many are under-resourced and have difficulties in operating under an individualistic business model. Although coopetition (simultaneous cooperation and competition) has been recognised as a positive driver of performance, the complexities of this association remain under-researched. Consequently, grounded in resource-based theory and the relational view, the purpose of this current study is to examine the moderating roles of inter-firm conflict and competitive intensity in the coopetition–sales performance relationship.

After undertaking 25 field interviews, survey data were collected from 151 non-mainstream sporting clubs in New Zealand. This setting was ideal, since it hosts high-degrees of cooperativeness and competitiveness. After assessing the statistical data for all major robustness checks (including common method variance and endogeneity bias), the hypothesised and control paths were tested through a hierarchical regression analysis.

Coopetition had a positive relationship with sales performance, but inter-firm conflict yielded a negative interaction effect. Surprisingly, this link was positively moderated by competitive intensity.

Under-resourced entrepreneurs (like those in many small sports clubs) should consider cooperating with their competitors, as these strategies can assist them to improve their sales performance. However, they should be careful when engaging in such activities due to the considerable risk that rival firms could behave opportunistically, which might harm their performance. That being said, owner-managers are advantaged if they operate in sectors where there are lots of competitors because there is increased scope to collaborate with “complementary” and trustworthy rivals that can help them to achieve mutually-beneficial outcomes. Indeed, sporting governing bodies (including those that operate on a non-profit basis) should encourage their members to engage in coopetition due to these positive financial consequences.

This investigation contributes to the extant literature by evaluating the competitive forces affecting the link between coopetition and sales performance. Specifically, new evidence emerges on the circumstances where coopetition is (and is not) a performance-enhancing entrepreneurial strategy. Further, this investigation provides unique insights regarding coopetition among non-mainstream sporting clubs, adding new knowledge to the sports entrepreneurship literature. Moreover, by infusing resource-based theory with the relational view, stronger arguments feature how owner-managers can navigate the paradoxical forces that drive coopetition activities. This study ends with several practitioner implications, alongside a series of limitations and avenues for future research.