The Importance of Competition and Cooperation for the Exploration of Innovation Opportunities

The business landscape is continuously changing. Markets as well as technologies develop, sometimes rapidly, as innovations destroy old technologies and disrupt markets, at times incrementally, while products and processes are adjusted and refined (see e.g. D’Aveni, 1994; Hamel and Prahalad, 1994; Makadok, 1998; Nagarajan and Mitchell, 1998). Consequently, the ability to explore new opportunities and develop new technology has become increasingly important. Technological development is crucial for business and market opportunities and for the competitiveness of firms in many industries (cf. Rice, et al., 2001). In this chapter, we focus on the exploration of opportunities related to technological innovations.