Abstract
In this paper I offer a view that introducing the perspective of "co-opetition" (cooperation and competition) in the organization design of the research and development (R & D) department in the home country may bring competitive advantages to a given firm under certain circumstances. Drawing on a case study of a mobile handset company that has been exploiting a multi-layer co-opetition strategy in its R & D organization and process building, this study shows that virtual and flexible cooperation in the most time- and resource-consuming phases of the development process (i.e. building a shared platform and bug management), and competition in the remaining part of the development process, when deeply embedded within the R & D process, improve the performance of a given firm. This type of R & D strategy could be more effective, specifically when the technological and market environment of the home country are both superior and the focus of competition is on diversity, rapid, and high quality innovation. This enables the firm to develop potentially successful models when they try to expand their products into foreign countries.
