Entrepreneurial networks without borders

Abstract

The notion of coopetition describes a dynamic interplay of rival companies which both collaborate and compete to increase profitability. All enterprises engaged in coopetition form a network in which the nodes refer to the locations of firms while the edges signify coopetitive interactions. This paper examines spatial characteristics, architectures and economic effects of five transboundary coopetitive networks. They are located in Hungary, Transylvania, Austria, the Ukraine and Poland and comprise 370 competitors.

In the five networks analysed, competitors cooperate in joint transport and purchasing to realise savings that translate into growth of income and/or creation of new jobs. Qualitative and quantitative methods were combined to adequately understand regional network features. For this purpose, a total of 370 semi-structured interviews were conducted and questionnaires completed.

To identify the spatial characteristics of networks, primary graph datasets were produced by integrating advanced toolkits of spatial network analysis and spatial econometrics. Empirical results indicate that coopetitive networks at regional level could exploit economies of scale. They contributed significantly to the dynamics of local economic growth. More precisely, 257 new jobs were created and incomes were increased higher than the inflation rate.

The networks show a hub-and-spoke topology. In every network, all competitors link to a ‘focal’ node while only some nodes have more than one connection. The dominant firm (hub) is the integrator which is linked to every enterprise, but the direct relationship between the companies is rarely measurable.