Interfirm coopetition, trust, and opportunism: a mediated moderation model

Abstract

Based on the literature on coopetition, interorganizational trust perspective, and recent work studying their interactions, we propose a mediated moderation model, which delineates how coopetition moderates the relationship between collaborations and opportunism and whether interorganizational trust mediates the moderated relationship. The findings indicate that the interaction of collaborations and coopetition positively influences opportunism, and that this effect will be negatively mediated by interorganizational trust. The results highlight that simultaneous use of the coopetition strategy will impact the efforts on opportunism reduction and illustrate the importance of interorganizational trust in the coopetitive situation.