The race is on: Configurations of absorptive capacity, interdependence and slack resources for interorganizational learning in coopetition alliances

Coopetition alliances offer great learning opportunities as well as tensions related to the sharing and protection of knowledge. Interfirm learning advances the complementarities in coopetition while sourcing efficiency advantages and innovation. Sharing and protection tensions in coopetition require firm- and relationship-oriented factors to enable interfirm learning. The present study reveals configurations of strong and weak interfirm learning in coopetition alliances. Absorptive learning capacity is a necessary condition of interfirm learning, while organizational slack resources and interdependence between firms are important additional conditions.