Understanding coopetitive relationship of SME within aronautic and spatial industries
Résumé
Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs) are often engaged in cooperative relationships with competitors because of environment constraints. Based on a sample of 40 aeronautic and aerospace companies located in Europe, we try to understand different types of relationships of coopetition for SMEs in a competitive industry. The first form of coopetition is "endogenous coopetition". In this case, SMEs are actors of coopetition. They choose to pool their efforts between SMEs to face global companies. The second strategy is "exogenous coopetition". In this case SMEs are agents of the coopetition. Actors from higher ranks (prime-contractors) oblige SMEs to cooperate with them or with others subcontractors.