Effects of complementors' perceived coopetition on fostering innovation: Evidence from Chinese software platforms

Abstract

Coopetition and innovation are universally recognized as pivotal activities for complementors on platforms. Distinct from extant literature that investigates the relationship between coopetition and innovation in traditional transactional markets via a ‘behavior-outcome’ framework, this research employs a survey approach to examine the impact of perceived coopetition intensity on both speed and quality of innovation from the vantage point of software platform complementors. Additionally, this study explores the moderating role of perceived delegation of decision-making rights in shaping this relationship. Our empirical findings indicate a positive correlation between the intensity of perceived coopetition and the speed and quality of innovation among complementors. Moreover, the perception of delegated decision-making rights was found to attenuate the relationship between perceived coopetition intensity and innovation quality, while amplifying its correlation with innovation speed. These insights contribute to the growing corpus of research on coopetition in the digital platform context.