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Organizational innovativeness and coopetition: a study of video game developers

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Abstract

Collaboration with rivals is viewed as a way to achieve superior performance of firms in terms of innovation output. Yet empirical results show that coopetition may either foster, hamper or be neutral to innovation. The motivation of our study resides in firms’ heterogeneity in terms of their innovative capacity, that is innovativeness, in order to better understand the complex relationship between coopetition and innovation. We explore the interdependency between organizational innovativeness and coopetition. Our study has been conducted in the Polish video game industry. The data has been collected through a survey administered to all 506 identified Polish video game developers, with an effective sample of 84 coopetitors. We run correlation and regression analyses in a multidimensional approach to organizational innovativeness and coopetition. Our findings show that coopetition is a popular strategy for video game developers, and is adopted by 68% of firms. Organizational innovativeness and its particular dimensions are positively and significantly related to both direct and indirect coopetition. Based on factor analysis we find its three components to be reliable: openness and encouragement to innovate; strategic innovative focus; and extrinsic monetary motivation. While extrinsic monetary motivation does not play a role in coopetition of video game developers, openness and encouragement to innovate stimulates especially indirect coopetition, while strategic innovative focus affects especially direct coopetition.

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Notes

  1. We claim that a game developer is not the same as a game distributor or a game publisher. Firstly, a video game developer is understood as a company whose core business is game development. Secondly, game publishers specialize in publishing, while game distributors in game distribution. Even though there are some publishers and distributors which develop their own games (e.g. Skate or Die developed by Electronic Arts) their core activities are focused on publishing and/or distribution (e.g. Syndicate developed by Starbreeze AB or Brutal Legend made by Double Fine Productions but released by Electronic Arts). Given the growing popularity of the digital distribution of video games, the role and significance of game publishers and distributors is decreasing. Furthermore, as mobile gaming is increasing rapidly, the majority of game developers no longer choose to outsource distribution or publishing activities. However, even though they are able to cover the whole value chain, their core activities still relate to game development.

  2. In the video game industry, this kind of game developers are labeled as independent game developers and understood as individuals who develop games. However, in contrast to other creative industries, they usually do not operate as typical freelancers, but work in permanent teams not limited to one gaming project. Such teams consist only of independent game developers and are not formally registered. In business practice, the games are developed by a team of independent game developers under a civil business partnership, which is not classified as a company by Polish law (i.e. every team member is registered as a self-employed entrepreneur in the register of business activity, while game developers which have the status of a company are registered in the national court register). Although this type of game developers are individually registered and self-employed entrepreneurs, they develop games in permanent and unregistered teams. In fact, these teams are a form of informal organization which operate longer than one business project. Thus the applicability of organizational innovativeness seems to be well-reasoned.

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Acknowledgements

This paper was supported by a research grant from the National Science Centre under the project titled: Co-creative relationships and innovativeness—the perspective of the video game industry (UMO-2013/11/D/HS4/04045). We would like to thank all three Reviewers engaged in the revision process as well as the Editor whose comments and suggestions were very helpful in improving the manuscript.

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  1. University of Economics in Katowice, 1 Maja 50, 40-287, Katowice, Poland

    Patrycja Klimas

  2. Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Gołębia 24, 31-007, Kraków, Poland

    Wojciech Czakon

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  1. Patrycja Klimas
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Correspondence to Patrycja Klimas.

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Klimas, P., Czakon, W. Organizational innovativeness and coopetition: a study of video game developers. Rev Manag Sci 12, 469–497 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11846-017-0269-5

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