Cooperative competition? The ambivalence of coopetition in territorial authorities
| Date | 01 September 2019 |
| Author | Annie Bartoli,Philippe Hermel,Christophe Assens |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020852317720492 |
| Published date | 01 September 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
Article
Cooperative competition?
The ambivalence of coopetition
in territorial authorities
Christophe Assens
Universite
´de Versailles Saint-Quentin en Yvelines, France
Annie Bartoli
Universite
´de Versailles Saint-Quentin en Yvelines, France and
Georgetown University, USA
Philippe Hermel
Universite
´de Versailles Saint-Quentin en Yvelines, France and
Georgetown University, USA
Abstract
Cooperative competition – coopetition – is a phenomenon whose influence extends
to the sphere of territorial public management. Based on an initial questionnaire
conducted among 252 territorial authority managers, an exploratory case study on
inter-municipal cooperation in France’s Rho
ˆne-Alpes region, and an in-depth follow-
up survey among 10 leaders, we analyse why and how cooperation between territorial
authorities is advisable, despite the potential political rivalry between local elected
representatives and the specific challenges of each territory, provided that they respect
the principles of equity in governance and avoid conflicts of interest when managing
their teams.
Points for practitioners
Our research shows the benefits of cooperation between competing territorial autho-
rities, provided that they respect the principles of equitable management. This implies
the need to distribute power equally among partners of all sizes, to take decisions
collectively by a majority, or even unanimously when it comes to a change of govern-
ance, and not to infringe on the prerogatives of each partner, unless added value can be
gained from pooling the efforts of territorial authorities.
International Review of
Administrative Sciences
2019, Vol. 85(3) 457–472
!The Author(s) 2017
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0020852317720492
journals.sagepub.com/home/ras
Corresponding author:
Christophe Assens, Universite de Versailles Saint-Quentin en Yvelines – Campus de Guyancourt, 47 boule-
vard Vauban, 78047 Guyancourt, 78047 France.
Email: assens@club.fr
Keywords
competition, cooperation, coopetition, public service, territorial authorities
Introduction
Reaching out to competitors is a complex but unsurprising phenomenon in today’s
world. In an attempt to describe this seemingly unnatural situation, Nalebuff
and Bradenburger (1996) coined the term ‘coopetition’ to underline the possibility
of cooperation in competition. Coopetition is a paradoxical strategy of cooper-
ation among competitors, enabling them to collectively achieve mutual gains
(Luo, 2007).
Coopetition is not limited to the private sphere but also has an influence on
public management. In this article,
1
we will focus our attention on territorial public
management in France, characterized as it is by a certain paradox: on the one
hand, the Colbertist tradition pushes for a centralization of the major planning
decisions with the creation of large entities such as regions, metropolises and
de
´partements, while, on the other hand, the principle of decentralization encourages
public decisions to be taken as close as possible to the citizen in the dense network
of the 35,000 communes. Hence the term ‘territorial millefeuille’,
2
which is much
used in France, notably in the press but also in analytical works,
3
to evoke the lack
of clarity in this division, in so far as each territorial authority superimposes itself
on the others, without replacing them or actual merging with them. This means
that the different local strata share the administration of the same territory and
finance the same projects in a way that is both complementary and competitive due
to the possible common competences and background political issues.
This article sets out to understand why and how territorial authorities within the
same territory can cooperate, overcoming political divides and other local issues
(Bengtsson and Kock, 2000). For a territorial authority, coopetition seems
paradoxical on the whole, as it aims to reinforce the attractiveness of the territory
with the help of its rivals, often of another political hue.
The political and the administrative, two dimensions that are deemed to be
distinct and complementary in the workings of the public sector, are partially
intertwined when it comes to matters of strategic management, due to the two-
tier governance of territorial authorities (Lamarzelle, 2011). This observation is
particularly evident when it comes to coopetition in so far as it integrates external
strategic dimensions and internal managerial dimensions. That is why our research
problem covers both the political and administrative aspects of the subject. To do
so, it focuses here on the point of view of the territorial leader, considered as a pivot
of the strategic implementation of political choices. While the elected representa-
tives may be the only legitimate decision-makers in terms of strategic direction with
other territorial authorities, they rely on their Director-General of Services and his
or her teams to identify the conditions for success and the operational modalities.
Consequently, it can be considered that, by assisting elected representatives with
458 International Review of Administrative Sciences 85(3)
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