The drivers for collective horizontal coopetition: a case study of screwcap initiatives in the international wine industry

This paper investigates antecedents for forming collective horizontal coopetition, where all or most major competitors in an industry cooperate to achieve a common goal while competing with each other in other areas of business. The purposes of this paper are: 1) to gain an understanding of how coopetition emerges within an industry using a case study of the screwcap initiative in the Australian, New Zealand and US wine industries; 2) to develop a conceptual model that describes the factors that lead to coopetition among horizontal competitors at the industry level. The following five factors are found to facilitate formation of this type of collective horizontal coopetition: strategic common goals, greater expected collective benefits, safeguards against knowledge transfer, intra-industry complementarities and strong ties in cooperative networks. These factors are presented as propositions. Then, theoretical contributions and managerial implications are discussed.