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  • Summer 2016
  • Article
  • California Management Review

Dynamic Capabilities at Samsung: Optimizing Internal Co-opetition

By: Jaeyong Song, Kyungmook Lee and Tarun Khanna
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Abstract

This article presents a clinical study, based on a decade of ongoing research at Samsung Group, which describes how the Samsung Group and its mobile phone division competed successfully in smartphones. The ability to manage co-opetition—simultaneous forces of competition and cooperation within the business group—is a particular dimension of dynamic capability that has stood Samsung in excellent stead. Relying on internal exhortations to cooperate often leads to a lack of dynamism, whereas untrammeled competition leaves proverbial synergies entirely untapped and spawns duplicative investments. Samsung, however, has succeeded by its ability to strike a balance between the two.

Keywords

Competition; Business Divisions; Cooperation; Mobile Technology

Citation

Song, Jaeyong, Kyungmook Lee, and Tarun Khanna. "Dynamic Capabilities at Samsung: Optimizing Internal Co-opetition." California Management Review 58, no. 4 (Summer 2016): 118–140.
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About The Author

Tarun Khanna

Strategy
→More Publications

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More from the Authors
  • Is Hybrid Work the Best of Both Worlds? Evidence from a Field Experiment By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Tarun Khanna, Christos A. Makridis and Kyle Schirmann
  • Talent@Tencent By: Tarun Khanna, Shu Lin and Nancy Hua Dai
  • A Note on Contextual Intelligence By: Caroline M. Elkins, Tarun Khanna, Vikram S. Gandhi, Karen G. Mills and Leonard A. Schlesinger
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