Dynamic Capabilities at Samsung: Optimizing Internal Co-Opetition

This article presents a clinical study, based on a decade of ongoing research at Samsung Group, that 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.