Abstract:
Firms collaborate with their competitors to further nonmarket strategies. These nonmarket collaborations enable partnering firms to implement nonmarket strategies that safeguard their interests by, for instance, lobbying for laws that defuse prospective competitors or resolve local social issues. Drawing upon stakeholder theory, we examine the types of nonmarket collaborations involving competing firms and the types of nonmarket strategies pursued through them. In so doing, we make two contributions to the nonmarket strategy literature. First, we show that nonmarket collaborations involving competing firms largely occur through three interorganizational structures: policy and socially-driven networks, industry associations and lobbying alliances. Second, we show that particular nonmarket strategies are pursued through each collaborative form at the international, national and local contextual levels. These contributions demonstrate that nonmarket collaborations take various forms and are influenced by internal and external considerations such as firm objectives, trade developments, and social and ecology forces.
