Coopetition as an innovation strategy in the European Union: Analysis of the German case

The aim of this article is to provide an in-depth examination of the relationship between coopetition and innovation in the European context. After examining the main findings in the literature on the subject, this article analyzes the data from the Eurostat Community Innovation Survey in Germany, and conducts a quantitative study associating coopetition and innovation with a view to observing how coopetitive companies perform in the field of innovation and what characteristics they have. Among other findings, the results show that international coopetition relates to cooperation with international clients in the public sector, governments and international universities. Less interest in collaborating with private partners is observed when coopeting on a domestic level. The size of the firm, the location of the partners, and the percentage of employees with a university degree are just some of the factors that are incorporated in the analysis.