‘Cookpetition’: Do restaurants coopete to innovate?

Abstract

This article studies the influence of ‘coopetition’, that is, cooperation between competitors, on the innovative behaviour of restaurant firms. The analysis is based on data gathered from a representative survey conducted on Spanish small and medium-sized enterprises operating in the restaurant industry. A binary logistic regression specification is used to test the core hypotheses in the article. The results confirm that coopetition fosters product innovation in restaurant companies. Coopeting restaurants also introduce more process innovations, although this effect is not found to be statistically significant. However, participation in restaurant chains and commercialization networks is found to stimulate process innovation. Likewise, business owners with intrinsic entrepreneurial motivation favour product innovation in their restaurants. Notwithstanding, investments in ICT and in staff training are observed to be the main determinants of product and process innovation in the restaurant industry.