Contemporary Challenges in Cooperation and Coopetition in the Age of Industry 4.0

Industry Revolution 4.0 generate significant issues to still a large group of enterprises and often even barriers to the processes of their further growth or improving market competitiveness. Unfortunately, awareness among the businesses regarding their specificity, prevalence and real consequences is limited. This is why identification of major problems of effective shaping of enterprises’ competitiveness in the Industry 4.0 era is the research problem. Consequently, the main goal of the paper is to identify and map the key barriers and potential sources of failure in processes of building competitive advantage of enterprises operating in the age of Industry 4.0, the so-called Black Points and creation of a specific “Road Map”, which is a path/algorithm of actions illustrating how organisations can better prepare themselves to overcome these key barriers. The research was based on a review of the literature on strategic management, competitiveness of businesses, theory on competitive advantage or describing requirements that organisations face in the age of IR 4.0. The collected data was compared with the empirical results of research by global management consultancies who assessed the problems and degree of implementation of IR 4.0 solutions and preparation of enterprises from various countries to the requirements of IR 4.0.

The interest in Industry 4.0 has been gaining popularity, which is confirmed by the dynamically growing number of publications. The popular yet relatively poorly recognized scientific concept revolutionizes production strategies of enterprises. This prompts many researchers to analyze the real status of knowledge using a systematic literature review. In contrast to the available foreign publications, the existing analysis shows the lack of an analogous outcome on the domestic market. A systematic review of the literature made it possible to answer the following questions: (1) How widespread is the concept of Industry 4.0 in the Polish literature? (2) Which of the mentioned areas of the Industry 4.0 concept are particularly eagerly explored by researchers in Poland? (3) What research directions should the scientists focus on in the future? The conducted research resulted in findings regarding the current state of knowledge about Industry 4.0 in Polish conditions and indication of future research directions.

New technologies have been recognized as key drivers for corporate profitability and growth in today’s fast-changing environment. Technical and technological progress has made innovations and new technologies a tool used by developed and emerging economies to achieve growth and improve competitiveness. Not all companies, R&D institutes, and universities creating new technologies are successful in their commercialization. In most cases, the reason is a “valley of death.” Some new technologies are enablers. Their diffusion allows to create innovative products, processes, services in different industries. Not all technologies of this type, even if commercialized, spread to different industries. Some, more than others, influence the economy’s development and innovativeness of different industries. A group of such technologies, recognized by the European Union as pivotal for increasing Europe’s competitiveness, is known as Key Enabling Technologies (KET’s). The aim of this article was to identify the theoretical and research gaps in the area of “valleys of death” in creating, commercializing, and diffusion of KETs. Examples of different approaches to KET’s research and the “valley of death” problem are mentioned in this article. The methodology used was the literature review and desk research. The result of the conducted analyses is the identification of new research areas in technology commercialization and diffusion.

The primary goal of this paper has been an attempt to present breakthrough periods in the functioning of an enterprise, conditioned by ground-breaking technologies. In this study, two approaches to analyzing the notion of technology have been indicated in an original way, and five prisms have been distinguished through which it can be constructed. In addition, key inventions in the history of humanity have been identified together with their effect on the enterprise. Importantly, three main periods of the breakthrough have been indicated in the functioning of an enterprise. The research method used to solve the scientific problem is structural analysis and causal analysis. The first has enabled the identification of ground-breaking technologies, and the second one has identified changes taking place in the functioning of enterprises.

The flow of knowledge between employees contributes to the knowledge development which in turn influences individual and organizational creativity. However, knowledge sharing by employees is not a simplistic and homogeneous behaviour. Basing on the literature review in the area of intraorganizational knowledge sharing and creativity, the author aims to explain the relation between giving knowledge and individual (giver) creativity and organizational creativity. The knowledge sharing is analysed from the knowledge giver perspective. Author has distinguished two forms of knowledge giving—proactive and reactive—that are situation depended. This conceptual article indicates that proactive and reactive knowledge sharing relates differently with creativity and that sharing knowledge with others is not always positive to the giver’s creativity, while it is influential for organizational creativity. The theoretical deliberations are summarized in nine propositions. They indicate that managers need to take into account the likelihood of individual creativity loss as a cost of reactive knowledge sharing; otherwise, the quality of sharing could be harmed by knowledge manipulation by the sharer, with a negative influence on organizational creativity.

The aim of the paper was to identify the main directions of changes in the organisational culture of enterprises associated with the process of adaptation to functioning in the face of challenges of the Industry 4.0 concept. Thus, formulated goal was accomplished by presenting the main assumptions of the development of the Industry 4.0 era, indicating the Industry 4.0 era desired directions of changes in the organisational culture based on the results and conclusions from the empirical research conducted in 2018. In order to carry out the research, quantitative methods were used, and the research tool was an original questionnaire. As evidenced, the profile of the organisational culture of the studied group of enterprises in reference to the Industry 4.0 era requires profound changes associated with more comprehensive modelling that would strictly correspond to the requirements of the described concept.

There is a challenge before manufacturing, trading, and service companies, in the form of competitiveness in Industry 4.0 conditions. Classic passive matching strategies will be ineffective here. The winners will be those who actively anticipate the solutions of the new economy and those who are the first to actively support the implementation and internalization of new solutions. The problem the authors of the article are facing is the indication how companies behave in an attempt to actively influence the acceleration of the Industry 4.0 implementation process and thus to take a privileged position in the area of the value chain appropriate for the new economy. According to the authors of the article, the solution to this problem lies in the entrance of companies into the network with features of coopetition. Companies can then use such networks from all sources of efficiency of the co-opting network and thus increase their competitiveness and value on the market. The aim of the article is to build a network model with the features of coopetition dedicated to activities supporting the company taking a privileged position in new areas of economic activities on the example of the Industry 4.0 Revolution.

This study aims to answer the question: How level and character of interorganizational trust in different groups of partners influences a firm’s collaboration expressed by cooperation and coopetition. The literature suggests many factors determining the interorganizational trust, but our results, based on research conducted in 53 companies operating in Poland, grouped them into three different variables: the level of trust in a particular group of partners from the value network, the general trust in a potential partner, and the general trust in collaboration. Our findings also show that if the level of trust in a particular group of partners (i.e., suppliers, customers, other non-competitive partners) increases, the partnership cooperation with particular group is greater, and similarly if the level of trust in competitors increases, the inclination to coopetition is greater. Moreover, the other variables of interorganizational trust are not significant in this context.

Consolidations, acquisitions, and mergers of entities are very widespread managerial practices in the business sectors. They usually lead to increased efficiency and competitiveness of business entities, although they may also be aimed at limiting competitiveness through monopolization or oligopolisation. In the case of higher education institutions, mergers in most countries take place on the basis of an autonomous decision of the merger partners, often with the involvement of central and local authorities, employees of the universities themselves and other stakeholders. Universities are also subject to consolidation processes, both in the private and public sectors—in recent decades the number of mergers between universities around the world has increased significantly. The aim of the article is to identify the processes of coopetition, cooperation, and consolidation of universities in Poland. The article focuses on the complexity of mergers and acquisitions in the higher education sector. The research methodology is based on qualitative research—a comparative analysis of a case study of universities.

In the article, the problem of the communication of the Polish scientific units in the context of cooperation with companies is discussed. The main objective is to identify the companies’ expectations towards scientific units in this area. The research based on a method of indirect communication with respondents with the use of the questionnaire technique was conducted in 2018 among 135 companies representing smart specialisations in Lodz Region. The results show that the model of interpersonal communication with a scientist is the most expected form in business–science contacts. The best channel to provide the information to companies is electronic media, such as the web site of the scientific unit or e-mail. On the web sites of scientific units, companies’ representatives usually look for an offer for business. The most important information received from scientific units is an offer of cooperation and a sales offer addressed directly to companies’ representatives. The most important feature of the offer of scientific units is its market applicability.

Opportunism is an obstacle to close collaboration in page relationships. But little is known about what causes it. This study examines how the risk perception perspective influences opportunism in collaboration in small and medium technology enterprises. This paper answers the following research question: Is perception of risk for entrepreneurs in small and medium technology enterprises as an antecedent of opportunism? Using data from 304 responses to an opinion questionnaire survey. The data were analysed with structural equation models (SEM). The results show that the relational risk perceptions and the performance risk perceptions have a positive influence on their tendency to become opportunist. These findings confirm that risk perception is an important perspective to understand why contractors behave opportunistically. This paper focusses on the antecedents of opportunism in managerial decisions and their awareness.

The paper contributes to the research on the dependence between absorptive capacity and firm’s innovativeness. The aim of the paper is to assess the impact of the degree of absorptive capacity components development on the innovativeness level of financial companies operating in Poland. The theoretical part of the paper discusses firm’s innovativeness and its relations with inter-firm collaboration and developing the absorptive capacity. The empirical part of the paper presents the findings obtained in an online survey using a CSAQ—a conducted on the sample of 111 commercial financial sector companies operating in Poland. The presented study focuses on identifying the components of absorptive capacity that determine the increase of firm’s innovativeness level. They indicate that the capability to use specific forms of acquiring new technologies from outside and the capability to develop the acquired technologies are those which most significantly influence firm’s innovativeness level.

In recent years, the concept of proximity becomes more popular not only in the field of economic geography but—surprisingly—also in strategic management. The growing attention paid to the considerations about proximity stems from the fact that it may be perceived as a significant factor leveraging effectiveness and performance of both cooperating (or coopeting) organizations and inter-organizational networks. Therefore, this paper attempts to explore and synthesize prior literature on proximity and its dimensions. Nevertheless, the main aim is to develop a consistent, logical, theory-based multidimensional proximity framework applicable in any further research investigations undertaken within strategic management, especially those adopting the relational view on strategic advantage. Drawn from existing literature, this paper presents the significance of proximity for collaboration and networking and helps to understand the essence of its particular dimensions. By identifying and limiting the drawbacks of prior approaches to proximity, six—separate hence interrelated—dimensions of proximity are outlined and discussed, thus the holistic proximity framework is developed. The main contribution of this conceptual paper is development of six-dimensional proximity framework (including geographical, cognitive, organizational, social, institutional, and communicational proximities) truly removing substantial barriers for further exploration and exemplification of proximity concept.

The paper aims at analyzing the role of acceleration of tourism sector development (observable due to the popularization of SE) in intra-sectoral cooperation. To test the above assumption, we carried out the quantitative research on 368 randomly selected Polish tourism companies. The positive impact of acceleration of tourism sector’s development on intra-sectoral cooperation was identified using two separate analytical approaches, i.e., regression analysis and structural equation modeling. The results show that the influence is significant and positive, however, rather weak. Furthermore, it seems that intra-sectoral cooperation is driven rather by the acceleration of tourism sector’s development conditioned either by popularization of ICT or by tourism companies’ development than by the acceleration of tourism sector conditioned either by popularization of experience tourism or by development of tourism companies’ innovation outputs.

Conflicts are incorporated in any company’s business activity. The development of company’s international operations entails higher probability of conflict situations with foreign partners. The aim of the paper is to analyse the sources of conflict in inter-organisational foreign relationships of multinational enterprises (MNEs) and to identify how these conflicts affect MNEs’ activities. The outcomes are analysed both for inter-organisational relationship and for MNE’s activities in general. Also, formal and informal actions undertaken by managers in order to resolve a conflict situation and to minimise potential negative consequences are investigated. The analysis is based on in-depth interviews conducted in five different units (headquarters and subsidiaries) of Polish-based MNEs. After internal and comparative analysis, obtained results are compared with the existing research. The results show that identified conflicts in foreign inter-organisational relationships of MNEs’ units were not severe. The conflicts had sources mainly in everyday problems or cultural differences. Regardless of the source, in the majority of analysed MNEs’ units, conflicts had a positive effect on the external relationships themselves and the MNE’s activities.

The main conceptual goal of this article is to present the preliminary assumptions of the planned research project focused on the influence of strategy dynamics and dynamism of inter-organizational network strategies on the overall development of network systems. Primary focus was put on the comparative aspects of centralized and decentralized networks (considering decisional centralization). The elaboration defines basic conceptual categories, i.e., dynamics and dynamism of strategy, as well as the results of these inter-organizational network activities in the form of their development. The main research assumptions and research questions were indicated in the text, as well as the main goal of the planned research was determined. This main research goal is formulated as the detailed analysis of relations between the strategy dynamics of inter-organizational networks (centralized or decentralized) and network development in the sense of increasing the effectiveness of activities within the considered systems. Moreover, the article presents fundamental, theoretical backgrounds of main categories, which are dynamics and the dynamism of strategy, analyzed within inter-organizational networks. The paper includes also main information about future research methodology, based on quantitative methods with the use of research questionnaire created with the focus on the scale of semantic potential. Issues described in the paper are mostly located within the evolutionary trend, in which the strategy takes the form of adaptation to widely understand variability of the organizational environment. The article is a part of a studies series on the dynamics of inter-organizational networks and a conceptual approach to analyzed issues.

Introducing new, innovative products to the market is nowadays a necessary condition for development in a saturated and demanding market. Customers’ expectations are constantly growing, which results in a need for constant reaction to them better than competition does. Customers, by making choices concerning a countless number of goods, demand satisfaction by being ensured both articulated and hidden needs. An interactive dialogue with a consumer, making use of the knowledge it provides, may become a source of leverage in creating innovation. Customer orientation is one of the key elements of an innovative company, and one can also observe its significance in creating new products. The aim of this paper is to diagnose the dependence between proactive customer orientation and creating product innovation in cooperation with consumers in companies from the FMCG sector. The study was conducted on a sample of 165 companies. The results indicate that there is a positive correlation between proactive customer orientation and (a) the evaluation of the significance of the buyers’ knowledge in creating product innovations, (b) the number of buyers’ sources of knowledge used and finally (c) the assessment of the degree of realising the objectives concerning product innovations. These results suggest that proactive customer orientation seeking cooperation with the consumer can influence the market success of product innovations that are created in cooperation.

The complex goal of this article is (1) to present the main paths and tendencies of a historical evolution of a firm, (2) considering the succeeding four industrial revolutions, (3) with focus on the challenges and changes brought into the business enterprise by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. A vast theoretical study, with some insights into research done by different authors as well as contemporary business practices, has been conducted. The main conclusion is that a progressive, more and more complex fusion of technologies, historically initiated by single advances and continued in our times with spectacular, AI-based, cyber-physical systems have been reinforcing the evolution of business enterprises for recent two hundred years. At present, breakthrough technologies remain the leading force of revolutionary changes, but the ability to communicate and get connected with partners rather than a narrow manufacturing aspect of technologies has recently become crucial for the evolution of business enterprises.

Firm-level strategies of value creation are typically identified with rational, analysis-based processes as well as conscious strategic choices made by decision-makers upon the broad access to information. Meanwhile, decisions concerning the sources of value creation (e.g., innovation, shaping strategic potential) and the value creation and capture itself (e.g., imitation, mergers, and acquisitions) are often dependent on inward-oriented managerial choices that underestimate facts and information. In this paper, we attempt to describe how cognitive biases, perceived as an irrational perception of reality, may influence strategic decisions, which translate into value creation and capture in organizations. In a similar vein, we offer some ideas of debiasing managerial decisions, looking specifically at organizational learning and diligent strategy based on interactions, constructive dialogue, and facts rather than perceptions.

The aim of the paper is to map the research field related to the issues of organization development in order to identify leading research patterns and thematic boundaries of the field. In the study, the combination of methods including research profiling, keywords co-occurrence analysis, and systematic literature review was applied. The paper contributes to the body of knowledge with answering to the following research questions: (1) how has intensity of research in the field evolved? (2) who are the main contributors (countries, universities, journals, authors, core references) to research development in the field? (3) what are leading topics within the field and how are they interrelated? (4) what are the emerging topics in research on organization learning?

Social media are considered to be one of the most important communication channel, widely used in almost every aspect of life. Their popularity and accessibility have influenced various fields, including marketing. One of the most prominent features in this domain is the virtual brand communities, gathered around fanpages. They do not only enabled the occurrence of efficient, almost real-time dialogue between the consumers and marketers, but also allowed the fans to participate in brand’s value co-creation. The main aim of the article is to present the issue of brand value co-creation in the social media. The author completed the research based on the survey carried out among a representative group of 650 Polish Internet users. The results indicate that fans eagerly engage in value co-creating activities, however they choose those requiring less effort. Therefore, the marketers should concentrate on increasing members’ involvement and partially moving the control to the consumers.

The article had some research goals: identifying determinants of recommending an employer by employees; defining the hierarchy of these determinants; etc. To prepare the theoretical part, the method of cognitive-critical analysis of literature on marketing, management and HRM was used. To prepare the empirical part, the following research methods were used: a questionnaire (to gather primary data) and the methods of statistical analysis (correspondence analysis). The statistical analysis allowed to identify the dependences between several variables and recommending an employer and to arrange them hierarchically. The strongest determinants of recommending an employer turned out to be: emotional attitude toward the employer, identifying with the company, the way of treating subordinates by superiors. Other dependences were statistically important (apart from one) but their strength was weaker. The main value of this article is applied approach presenting employees as prosumers. This approach is quite new because so far only consumers were treated as the prosumers.

In this article I have presented the original concept of heterogeneous manufacturing information systems’ cooperation by means of the integration platform. In detail, discussed integration standards based on electronic documents and interoperability technologies (SOA, XML, Web-Services). The main part of the article is a description of the results of the industrial research program, whose goal was to develop the model of decision support systems improving diagnostic process of workplaces. The immanent element of the research program was interoperability. It has been observed that lack of integration between specific branch systems and existing enterprise’s systems significantly limits their implementation in industrial practice. The solution for the cooperation and exchange of electronic documents between autonomous systems of industrial partners is the construction and implementation of the integration platform.

The idea of corporate social responsibility (CSR) responding to the challenges of sustainable development is currently being questioned, mainly due to its implied nature and alleged lack of genuine involvement of businesses in the implementation of CSR ideas. We argue that the basic requirement for genuine involvement of a company is the engagement of its employees in projects supporting sustainable development goals. Such projects can create positive social change in the organization and lead to various beneficial outcomes for the company. However, factors that trigger company willingness to conduct the aforementioned projects are still unclear. The aim of the paper is to present a theoretical framework in this regard.

This paper attempts the discussion on political will in strategic management. It provides insight into the range of political motivations that support stakeholder management. I present political will as a set of complementary dimensions, i.e., benevolence and self-serving, which are corresponding to fair and arm’s length approaches to stakeholder management. I formulate propositions presenting relationships between political will and effectiveness of managers and between motivation of political will and participation of stakeholders in creation of value. This integrative model offers the necessary political mechanism for organization’s value creation to be tested in the future research.