Coopetition (collaboration between competitors) has the potential to provide major benefits or losses to participating firms. Entering a partnership with a competitor is a strategic decision with potential longterm consequences rendering the choice of partner of key importance. Existing research has investigated partner's strategic attributes, but not how the inter-organizational factors between coopetiting firms affect partner selection and on which layers those effects occur. We use a vignette study for reducing this gap, representing the first experimental study on the field of coopetition research. The results from our study from 874 evaluations of potential coopetition partnerships by key informants from Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein and Switzerland offer insights into how the possible partner's role, resource alignment and the planned activity affect partner selection. The findings suggest that the partner's role in the markets -i.e. whether it is a direct or an indirect competitor -is critical in partner selection. The planned activity and resource configuration is also found to influence the evaluation of possible coopetition partners. Overall, the results of this first experimental study in coopetition research provide important implications to both theory and practice. coopetition can increase a firms bargaining power (Gnyawali & Park, 2009) and positively influence innovativeness (see, Gast et al., 2015). The learning-related criteria in coopetition partner selection have so far only been studied by Alves and Meneses (2015), who found that the partners' technology and the complementary dimension have a rather minor role in partner selection.The risk-related criteria arise from the actors' interdependence and describe the risks associated with the performance, relationship and the environment (Cummings & Holmberg, 2012). They include coordination, communication, alliance-value measurement, customer relationships or possible competition and for coopetition, specifically opportunism and knowledge leakage. Trust between partners is frequently used as a mechanism to minimize uncertainty in the coopetition process (Solesvik & Westhead, 2010). Risks are reduced by trust gained through prior and personal relationships. Prior successful associations, personal ties and communication convenience reduce perceived risks in coopetition partner selection (Alves & Meneses, 2015). Furthermore, firms prefer larger partners in coopetition, associating them with lower risk (Zakrzewska-Bielawska, 2015). Hypotheses development Research ModelBengtsson and Kock (2000) as well as Bengtsson et al. (2003) describe inter-firm relationships along three layers: the actor, the activity and the resources. The actor layer describes the firm's roles in the interaction with others, such as the role of a competitor, cooperative partner, buyer, supplier or complementor. The activity layer describes the processes and exchanges, which can vary with the partner. The resource layer explains the resource possession of the partners and their ...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the emerging field of experimental research on entrepreneurship to better understand its development and potential. Design/methodology/approach A systematic, evidence-based literature review was applied, resulting in a sample of 47 articles having used experiments in entrepreneurship research so far. The papers are analyzed according to their topic, methods, and research design, revealing insight into their limitations and prospective contributions. Findings The paper discusses the potential and disadvantages of experimental methods while arguing for experiments as the method of choice for answering causality questions. This study finds a persistent increase in experimental entrepreneurship research since its introduction in 1990. Research limitations/implications The study provides research from the field of entrepreneurship with future directions, with potential research areas and an orientation for those interested in conducting experiments. Originality/value Experiments are employed in a variety of research areas and have become more and more popular in the field of entrepreneurship. No study has analyzed the experimental studies in entrepreneurship. This paper contributes by providing an overview of the field, reflecting and discussing the outcomes while characterizing the methods employed.

This paper delivers new insights into how psychic, cultural and geographical distance influence international marketing mix decisions on the basis of a choice-based conjoint analysis with 96 managers from Switzerland and Liechtenstein. In this experiment, the managers had to decide whether the four Ps of the marketing mix have to be adapted or standardised for international markets (neighbouring country/European country/non-European country). Overall we found that psychic, cultural and geographical distance 128 S. Kraus et al.have a significant moderating effect on the degree of marketing mix adaptation: the larger the distance towards a market, the more inclined the managers are to make a decision that involves a larger degree of adaptation of the four Ps towards the simulated markets. The marketing mix elements product and promotion tend mostly to be adapted when cultural distance increases, while the elements price and distribution are more adapted when psychic distance is high.