Detecting Coopetition Within the “Grab-and-Go” Strategy in International Alliances

Leveraging the real option perspective, this chapter shows how international alliances may serve as strategic camouflage for future competitive or coopetitive actions. The strategy unfolds in two phases: the “grab” phase, characterized by explicit cooperation with implicit competitive potential, and the “go” phase, where firms leverage acquired knowledge to pursue various strategic paths. We advance coopetition literature by showing how initial cooperative arrangements naturally evolve into coopetitive relationships. In so doing, we advance the understanding of both the temporal dynamics of international alliances and the strategic emergence of coopetition.