This document summarizes a thesis about coopetition in inter-firm relationships. It finds that firms form coopetitive relationships to leverage accumulated alliance competences and pursue new business opportunities. It also finds that when firms engaged in partnership face restricted access to collective resources due to patent claims, they acquire and waive patent rights adjacent to the innovation. The thesis tests these hypotheses through case studies of IBM and Linux. It concludes that coopetition alters the assessment of resources, capabilities, and competences in inter-firm relationships.

1. Overview Findings Closing Comments
Coopetition in Inter-Firm Relationships
Altering the Assesment of
Resources, Capabilities and Competences
Jesper Mathias Nielsen Caroline Leifland
Jesper Mathias Nielsen L TEX 2Á
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2. Overview Findings Closing Comments
Overview of Thesis 1
Issue
Inadequate knowledge about coopetition in inter-firm relationships
in the light of seemingly paradoxical relationships and patent
strategies. Academically recognized knowledge lagoon.
Complications
Existing literature on coopetition does not go far beyond
naming and claiming
Academic discussions on coopetition are overly contrived in an
attempt to herald coopetition as something more than just
“old wine on new bottles”
Primary data pertaining to network-level coopetition is
di cult to access and gather
Jesper Mathias Nielsen L TEX 2Á
A

3. Overview Findings Closing Comments
Overview of Thesis 2
Question?
How should the assessment of resources, competences and capabilities be altered under conditions of coopetition?
1 Why do firms form coopetitive relationships?
2 Why can firms be observed to waive patent rights?
Answer!
Bridge the paradoxical observations to established theory on dynamic capabilities, knowledge dynamics, strategic
alliances and innovation modes, thus transforming the knowledge gap to a matter of reformulation or
“old wine on new bottles”:
1 H1 : Experiences, learning activities and knowledge creation related to cooperative inter-firm relationships
will drive firms to leverage accumulated alliance competences and maximize profits by seeking new
relationships in order to pursue adjacent business opportunities, thus increasingly moving toward a
competitive situation with the original cooperative partners, thereby creating coopetitive inter-firm
relationships.
2 H2 : When firms engaged in partnerships for up-stream co-development find their access to the core of a
collective pool of resources at risk of being restricted through claims of infringement on patents held by
firms adhering to proprietary innovation, the focal firms will acquire and waive patent right adjacents to
the endangered co-developed innovation.
Jesper Mathias Nielsen L TEX 2Á
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4. Overview Findings Closing Comments
Illustrating disruption
Jesper Mathias Nielsen L TEX 2Á
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5. Overview Findings Closing Comments
Illustrating disruption
Jesper Mathias Nielsen L TEX 2Á
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6. Overview Findings Closing Comments
Kill your darlings 1
Jesper Mathias Nielsen L TEX 2Á
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7. Overview Findings Closing Comments
Kill your darlings 2
In sum, our analysis shows that while Apple does compete with Samsung, despite simultaneously being Samsung’s
greatest customer and Samsung greatly benefitting from imitating Apple’s phone products it does so in a manner
that appears non-direct in nature and on a basis of competition that is measurably di↵erent. Based on the
combination of data released by Samsung for the California court case and data gathered from a number of
comScore press releases, we show the competition is primarily about conversion of current non-smartphone users
and only rarely about capturing customers from rivaling platforms with churn between platforms being limited to
some 10 permille per month.
Jesper Mathias Nielsen L TEX 2Á
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8. Overview Findings Closing Comments
Test of H1
IBM’s century long presence on the business scene makes it an excellent maximum-probability case for the study of
dynamic capabilities at play. Hence, it is ideal for falsification purposes. Moreover, prior adherence to the discrete
organizations perspective qualifies IBM as minimum-probability case with regards to synergies from inter-form
relationships, making it ideal for verification.
Jesper Mathias Nielsen L TEX 2Á
A

9. Overview Findings Closing Comments
Test of H1
Findings in case of the IBM PC and the later PowerPC
A notable change in approach to partnerships while partially
o↵ering the same functional competences
The significance of having access to complementary resources
and competences in the development of new and valuable
products
A significant level of inter-firm learning, which IBM embraces
in the AIM alliance through co-location and intertwining of
inter-organizational processes
We find support for H1 as IBM seemingly learns from its interaction
with Microsoft and Intel and uses the accumulated alliance
competences to navigate the market for computers and form the
AIM alliance, hence enabling an adjacent business opportunity.
Jesper Mathias Nielsen L TEX 2Á
A

10. Overview Findings Closing Comments
Test of H2
Qualitative findings in case of the Linux
IBM’s enormous patent portfolio qualifies the company as an
excellent minimum-probability case for the study of patent waivers
as IBM according to traditional conjectures stands to lose the most
by not enforcing them.
Sutor, 2005 “”
“We hope that this [patent pledge] will stimulate discussion about the changing nature of innovation and new
collaboration models and (. . . ) also hope others will join us by similarly pledging patents to the commons.”
Moody, 2007 “”
“[The patent pledge] was designed to shake up people’s thinking about the use of software patents in open-source
and proprietary software.”
At the very least, the comments of the involved players suggests a
level of premeditation, which renders support for H2 .
Jesper Mathias Nielsen L TEX 2Á
A

11. Overview Findings Closing Comments
Test of H2
Quantitative findings in case of the Linux
Statistically significant di↵erences in the right direction in the normalized mean patent acquisition and application activity between
firms adhering to proprietary innovation and firms engaged in coopetitive private-collective development of Linux around the
publication of the OSRM report.
These findings render ex post support for H2 .
Jesper Mathias Nielsen L TEX 2Á
A

12. Overview Findings Closing Comments
Closing Comments
Conclusion, Managerial Implications
Why do firms form coopetitive relationships?
Firms form coopetitive relationships in an e↵ort to leverage accumulated alliance competences in the search for new
business opportunities. This corroborates the managerial recommendations presented in literature on learning races
in strategic alliances, as it advocates for managers embrace the competitive aspects of cooperative relationships
and through it trade long-term survivability for short term profits. Moreover, it showcases the shift in resource
assessment as the managerial skills that facilitates accumulation of alliance competences become relatively more
important.
Why can firms be observed to waive patent rights?
Patent waivers by coopetitive private-collective firms constitutes an internationally coordinated patent portfolio
strategy to disarm patent rights held by proprietary innovators. It shows how coopetitive relationships can be based
on resources that are controlled rather than owned to avoid hold-up problems, and this should be included in the
assessment of resources under conditions of coopetition.
Jesper Mathias Nielsen L TEX 2Á
A

13. Overview Findings Closing Comments
Closing Comments
Discussion, Improvements and Critique
1 Focus: We could have focussed more on either dynamic capabilities in coopetitive relationships (and
included the section we wrote on Apple vs. Samsung) or formative drivers of patent waivers, but doing so
would shift focus away from filling Walley’s research gap.
2 Data: At times our data collection is too focussed on storytelling and too little on rigorous case building.
However, given the initially paradoxical observations the thesis is very much about portraying coopetition
examples of paradigmatic quality for which storytelling is a strong tool.
3 Improvements: eliminate type 1 errors, EU Patent O ce, figure 12 & issues found after printing.
Jesper Mathias Nielsen L TEX 2Á
A