Business Model Innovation in SMEs through Horizontal Coopetition: A Resource Orchestration Perspective

Sahar Ayadi (), Assil Bouzouitina Assil Bouzouitina and Svitlana Ostapenko Svitlana Ostapenko
Additional contact information
Sahar Ayadi: ENISE - Ecole Nationale d'Ingénieurs de Saint Etienne
Assil Bouzouitina Assil Bouzouitina: FSEG Sfax - Faculté des Sciences Economiques et de Gestion de Sfax - جامعة صفاقس - Université de Sfax - University of Sfax
Svitlana Ostapenko Svitlana Ostapenko: Universidade do Porto = University of Porto

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: Horizontal coopetition—the collaboration between direct competitors operating at the same market level—has increasingly emerged as a critical interorganizational strategy for enabling digital coopetition and business model innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Although prior research has examined the relationships between horizontal coopetition, digital coopetition, governance, and business model innovation, limited attention has been devoted to explaining the resource orchestration mechanisms through which these relationships create value and enhance innovation performance. This article addresses this gap by mobilising Resource Orchestration Theory (ROT; Sirmon et al., 2011). It argues that horizontal coopetition provides access to complementary resources, but these resources generate value only when they are effectively orchestrated—structured, bundled, and leveraged—through digital coopetition within governance arrangements comprising legal, transactional, and relational mechanisms that coordinate interfirm collaboration. The empirical analysis relies on secondary data collected from 143 French industrial SME clusters, with particular attention to the Vallée de l'Arve, and employs partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) using XLSTAT. The findings demonstrate substantial explanatory power and confirm the complementary roles of horizontal coopetition, digital coopetition, and governance in enhancing business model innovation performance. By conceptualising digital coopetition as the mechanism through which complementary resources are orchestrated in competitive relationships, this study extends Resource Orchestration Theory beyond intra-organisational resource deployment to interorganizational competitive settings. It also opens promising avenues for future research by encouraging further investigation into the breadth and depth of digitalisation as orchestration mechanisms and the cognitive antecedents of coopetition, including managers' coopetition readiness and Coopetitive mindset.

Keywords: PLS SEM; SMEs; business model innovation; governance; digital coopetition; resource orchestration theory; horizontal coopetition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-08-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-sbm
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-05775354v1
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in International Journal of Management Studies and Social Science Research, 2026, 08 (04), pp.175-197. ⟨10.56293/IJMSSSR.2026.6314⟩

Downloads: (external link)
https://hal.science/hal-05775354v1/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05775354

DOI: 10.56293/IJMSSSR.2026.6314

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().