Analysing Coopetition in Supply Chains through the Lens of Schatzki’s Practice Theory

This dissertation investigates coopetition from a Supply Chain Management (SCM) perspective and focuses on the collaborative and competitive relationships that practitioners accomplish when overseeing their supply chains. Coopetition is defined as a situation in which a company engages in both collaborative and competitive interactions with a direct competitor. Previous research has associated coopetition to Research & Development (R&D) benefits, knowledge creation, knowledge acquisition, access to resources and business performance. This study identifies two issues within the current literature. The first issue is the lack of focus on supply chain practices and practitioners and the second is the limited knowledge among scholars on how coopetition is enacted. This study addresses these research limitations by applying a different focus to the study of supply chain topics. Specifically, this study uses Schatzki Practice Theory to focus on supply chain practitioners, their actions and the impact of their decisions. As a result, this study’s aim is to apply a Schatzkian practice theoretical framework to investigate coopetition in supply chains.