Co-opetition in the boating industry and collective managerial capacity

Co-opetition allows small businesses to pool their human resources to introduce new lines of business and/or exploit new geographic markets. Co-opetition is nevertheless a difficult strategy to organise because of its dual nature. The management of the collaborators involved in a project plays a role in achieving the collective and individual objectives pursued by the firms involved. The relationship between the management of human resources during co-opetition and the objectives related to the cooperative sector's activity and territory policies deserves to be addressed. Our empirical study of the leaders of 106 French small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) and mid-cap boating firms reveals that specialised and national co-opetition encourages individual learning linked to the exposure of the human resources of its participants. Conversely, the complexity of a diversified and international co-opetition creates a new collective managerial capacity resulting from the firms' collaborative efforts.