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Article
What Conditions for an Appropriate Public “Coopetition”? The Case of French Local Government
Author(s)
Christophe Assens
Annie Bartoli, Philippe Hermel
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DOI:10.17265/1537-1514/2017.05.001
Affiliation(s)
University of Versailles (Larequoi), Paris, France
University of Versailles (Larequoi), Paris, France; Georgetown University (CIED), Washington, USA
ABSTRACT
“Coopetition”
is a phenomenon, generally studied in market economy (Nalebuff &
Brandenburger, 1996), which establishes the necessity to unify opposing forces
to confront a common threat or to gain a collective competitive advantage. Thus
“coopetition” is derived from strategy of a network where it is neither about
attaining a critical size nor of competing to eliminate its adversaries. It is,
rather, a question of collaboration with the competition to protect the common
good from destructive channels of activity, whether from a profession or from a
technology. This article presents the concept of “coopetition” in the sphere of
public territorial management as inspired by the theoretical works by Bengtsson
and Kock (1999; 2000). The research question is to understand what extent
collaboration in competition is a generalized practice, not only in the sphere
of market economy, but equally in the management of local government. Relying
on the study of an exploratory case devoted to the cooperation of 169 communes
in the Rhone Alps, completed by an investigative team of nearly 250 territorial
directors, the main results of the research are the following ones: within the
limits of the field of investigation, the observations of public management
regarding “coopetition” processes validate the current theory of private
management. More precisely, “coopetition” among local authorities proves
advantageous for protecting the common good, the well-being, of a territory, by
zeroing in on initially non-compatible objectives among the territorial strata.
The conditions for such outcomes rely on equality of principals in governance
and avoidance of conflicts of interest in management teams.
KEYWORDS
coopetition, rivalry, competition, cooperation, local government, public service
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