Institutional coopetition logics and (un)productive tensions in new marketplaces: insights from the contactless payment card project

Prior work on coopetition highlights the unproductive risks of misappropriation between firms that simultaneously cooperate and compete. This paper provides insights into both productive and unproductive coopetitor tensions in the creation of new marketplaces. We theoretically discuss the characteristics and complexity of new marketplaces and how those spaces produce coopetitive tension. In addition, we conduct an in-depth case study of the contactless payment card project. In this, we describe the tensions related to this coopetitive project and identify three coopetition tension types – strategic, social and relational – which allow individuals to manage, transcend and integrate-bridge heterodoxlogics and their shifting salience within coopetition work. We then develop a two-dimensional coopetition tension framework explaining how coopetitor practice produces both productive and unproductive tension in relation to new marketplaces. The present study therefore represents a noteworthy academic contribution to theory and practice.