Abstract
Introduction
Organisations within the same sector or field of practice often engage simultaneously in cooperation and competition, both internally and amongst each other. This has been termed ‘coopetition’ (Bengtsson and Kock, 2000), and there is a growing body of research underpinning the concept (Bengtsson and Kock, 2014; Gernsheimer et al., 2021). Coopetition research has historically been situated in the market economy, primarily inspecting, for example, businesses, industrial development, supply chains, and corporate profit-making strategies. This paper argues that, as well as in mainstream market economies, coopetition exists in non-market economic domains. It traces the occurrence of coopetition in Community Food Initiatives (CFIs), a non-market economy, and highlights its impact on the community’s resilience.
Coopetition research has been situated in the market economy, where the driving factors include profits; market growth; free trade; economic sovereignty; and reduced state restrictions (Gregory and Stuart, 2004; Beumer et al., 2022; Polanyi, 1947). Gregory and Stuart (2004) describe the market economy as coordinating ‘the activities of decision-making units. Households earn income by providing land, labour, and capital, and with this income they buy the goods that firms supply. Firms and households respond to the market. Other mechanisms for information or coordination are not necessary’ (p. 25). Rather than ‘addressing the economy as a price-making market system and unifying economics under deductive mathematical modelling [which] has involved the conversion of all entities into objects’ (Spash and Asara, 2017), non-market economies are those that engage in ‘charity, taxation, welfare, and producing for one’s own consumption’ which ‘play a crucial role in organizing production, consumption, and exchanges in contemporary societies around the world’ (Beumer et al., 2022, 430). The intent of non-market economies is what sets them apart from the market economy – their primary focus is not on the market features outlined above, but on a plurality of outcomes (Fischer et al., 2017). Non-market economies include, but are not limited to, alternative economies (Healy, 2020), diverse economies (Gibson-Graham, 2008), solidarity economies (Loh and Agyeman, 2019), and care economy (Gatzia, 2011), each of which has its own extensive body of literature (Beumer et al., 2022). CFIs are networks that comprise a complex array of actors, which inhabit some, if not all, of these non-market economies, and cannot easily be reconciled under a single economic theory. For example, CFIs engage in the solidarity economy through food sharing/gifting; in the care economy through the services provided, often voluntarily, that support caregiving; in ecological economics through the use of waste food or redistribution of excess stock. This paper, therefore, positions CFIs as being ‘non-market’, expanding coopetition research beyond a single economic domain.
CFIs provide subsidised or free food to local residents through organisations like food banks, food larders and community fridges. Food banks provide emergency food provision in points of crisis, and longer-term food assistance for households struggling with ongoing access and affordability issues. Many of these are referral-only and in some way means-tested. Schemes like food larders are low-cost paid membership schemes which leverage bulk buying and surplus food to reduce household costs. They are not means tested, and some have subsidy schemes for struggling households. Community fridges are drop-off and collection points for surplus food, often designed to reduce food waste, and based in accessible locations (community centres, churches, etc). Food can take the form of fresh fruit and vegetables, dry and tinned goods, prepared meals, or redistributed baked goods from, for example, cafes (Good Food Oxford, 2021a).
CFIs have played an increasingly important role in managing food poverty in the UK since the 2008 financial crisis, intensifying following the austerity measures that began in 2010, with the 2013 welfare reforms deepening vulnerabilities (Saxena and Tornaghi, 2018). The Covid-19 pandemic increased the demand, not just for food aid due to poverty, but due to shielding and illness. In Oxfordshire, as with most of the UK, CFIs had increases in demand for services, changes in volunteer availability, and had to manage rapidly changing policy and funding landscapes (Driessen, 2020). They played critical roles in distributing food to households unable to leave the house during the UK lockdowns (Weekes et al., 2020; Blake, 2020).
CFIs form a network of actors, which can appear strikingly similar to a standard food chain, including suppliers, distributors, and consumers. However, CFIs engage in non-market economies, with many services free at the point of use, or subsidised; they are often volunteer-led; and they are intended to tackle food-related social inequalities or environmental issues. They do not intend to turn a profit. An outsider’s perspective might suggest that CFIs would have aligned goals, and be entirely cooperative. However, as with most things, it is more complicated than that.
Data collected over two years (between 2019 and 2021) in Oxfordshire’s CFI network show simultaneous cooperation and competition within and between the network’s organisations, which impacted how they acted and interacted during a time of upheaval and change. Applying the concept of coopetition to non-market economies extends our current knowledge about coopetition. It also highlights potential strategies for CFIs that can be leveraged for improved resilience, which relates to the ability of communities to adapt and maintain stability during environmental, economic, social, or political challenges (McDaniel et al., 2021; Cavaye and Ross, 2019). Understanding and building resilience is vital to CFI functionality because they rely heavily on practitioners who are often overloaded and under-paid, and on the support of the broader CFI network to deliver essential provisions in difficult circumstances. It is also vital to users of CFIs, many of whom rely on services for regular food provisioning, as well as a stepping stone to broader services and community connections (Good Food Oxford, 2021a).
The paper is structured as follows: an exploration of the coopetition literature to date, a description of the methodology, detailed insights into coopetition within CFIs, and a discussion about the role of coopetition in the community’s resilience.
Literature review
Constructing coopetition
Coopetition is a portmanteau of cooperation and competition, defined by Bengtsson and Kock (2014, 180) as ‘a paradoxical relationship between two or more actors simultaneously involved in cooperative and competitive interactions’. Within the business and marketing literature, coopetition research has gained increasing popularity, as it tackles ‘strategic paradoxes endemic in modern business that creates inherent tensions and which requires leaders to be able to manage contradiction and their organisations to host complex business models’ (Walley and Custance, 2010, 185).
Traditionally, competitive and cooperative relationships have been treated as separate research streams in the literature, with researchers of one stream often portraying the other as incompatible (Hoffmann et al., 2018; Bengtsson and Kock, 2000). Competition was understood to be essential for driving business growth, market efficiency, competitive tensions, and innovation (Quintana-García and Benavides-Velasco, 2004; Amata et al., 2021). This is based on assumptions that individuals and firms act to maximise payoffs (Raza-Ullah et al., 2020). Cooperation, meanwhile, was understood to build trust and reciprocity along, for example, a supply chain (Hoffmann et al., 2018; Mathias et al., 2018), where individuals and organisations collectively act to achieve common goals within certain social structures (Bengtsson and Kock, 2000).
This dualistic treatment of competition and cooperation implies that in order to be successful in a competitive marketplace, firms must be above all competitive, which led to ‘win-lose’ scenarios for firms and individuals. However, research and improved business practice have highlighted ‘win-win’ scenarios achievable through mixed strategies which embrace cooperation between firms, within firms’ teams, and across multiple actors in a network (Walley and Custance, 2010; Bengtsson and Kock, 2014; Gernsheimer et al., 2021; Chiambaretto and Dumez, 2016; Peng and Bourne, 2009; Raza-Ullah et al., 2020).
In describing coopetative relationships, Bengtsson and Kock (2000) outline three typologies in a symbolic representation of coopetative relationships: cooperation-dominated relationships, equal relationships, and competition-dominated relationships (Figure 1). ‘Cooperative dominant’ consists of more cooperation than competition; ‘equal relationships’ are when cooperation and competition are equally balanced; and ‘competitive dominant’ consists of more competition than cooperation. This has been expanded on by Park et al. (2014), who empirically demonstrated the effects of these relationships on firm innovation performance. Using Bengtsson and Kock’s (2000) original framework, this research explores its applicability to non-market economy actors, and whether it can help to illustrate the varying degrees to which coopetition exists between non-market actors, organisations, or networks. Coopetative relationships, redrawn from Bengtsson and Kock (2000, 416). Black and white show the weighting between cooperation and competition in coopetative relationships.
This paper builds on Bengtsson and Kock’s (2000) initial model, expanding it from a static model to a dynamic one, and adding in the ability to visualise the shifts between cooperative-dominant, equal, and competition-dominant relationships. This allows for a heuristic device that illustrates how interactions, which are dynamic and context-dependant, swing between cooperation-dominated and competition-dominated, and where actors can find normative working spaces appropriate for their sector. A re-conceptualised framework, one that places these typologies along a continuum, captures the ever-evolving CFI landscape, which is influenced by external forces and internal relationships. Figure 2 shows these same typologies, but positioned across an arc. Coopetition between actors, organisations, or within networks swings between them, sometimes nestling in one position for a period of time, sometimes rapidly swinging between typologies based on circumstance (explored in the discussion, below). This provides more scope for understanding the rapid relational shifts that happen within and between CFIs, and for discussing CFI resilience. The framework is re-visited in the final discussion section. A pendulum framework: Revisualising coopetition in a context of CFIs and resilience building.
Resilience of community food initiatives
Core to CFIs is the resilience of the network, which is directly impacted by cooperation and competition. This paper considers CFI resilience not only in relation to ‘families’, ‘clients,’ or ‘beneficiaries’ of the CFIs, but as relating to the entire CFI, comprising practitioners, users, and third parties (e.g. producers, schools, or government officials). Oxfordshire’s CFIs are a self-defining community, which ‘provide free or subsidised food for the community, and some may provide cooked meals,’ are ‘usually managed by voluntary and community organisations,’ can ‘signpost residents to other support services if necessary, e.g., mental health, debt and financial advice,’ and ‘also serve as social spaces that enable people to connect to their communities’ (Good Food Oxford, 2021b).
For the purposes of this research, communities are understood as being comprised of heterogeneous organisations, initiatives, and people connected through specific relationships, or who have certain shared characteristics, including behaviours, culture, institutions, location, politics, and values (Korosteleva and Petrova, 2022; Magis, 2010; Staeheli, 2008). Communities must manage various demands, often with limited resources, and with limited control over the conditions that impact them (Magis, 2010; Burnett, 2023; Staeheli, 2008). CFIs, for example, comprise numerous different actors along the food supply chain, including staff and volunteers, primary and secondary producers, end users, food and financial donors, app developers, and local government officials (Good Food Oxford, 2021b). This represents a diverse network of needs, relationships, and values, and while actors may aim for the same goal, they can sometimes pull in different directions.
Resilience literature often discusses systems disruption, and how to mitigate or adapt to environmental, economic, social, or political changes (King, 2008; Adger, 2000). Each of these challenges can impact communities or community organisations. However, rather than trying to find an equilibrium, as in systems resilience, the community resilience literature focuses on supporting self-reliance and self-organising practices (Korosteleva and Petrova, 2022; Folke, 2006). This broader conceptualisation of resilience relies, in part, on the ‘capacity to absorb disturbance and reorganize in order to retain the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks’ (Magis, 2010, 403), as well as on the ability of a community not just to respond and adapt to change, surprise, and uncertainty (McDaniel et al., 2021; Folke et al., 2010; Garnett et al., 2020), but to thrive in this environment. Whilst some disturbance can be absorbed, high levels of disruption can push communities beyond certain thresholds, where absorption and mitigation are no longer adequate. In order to survive, they must undergo transformations, a process of adaptive cycle renewal (Gunderson, 2002; Zhang, 2020). This can be a demanding time for communities, and relationships with other actors can influence success or failure during disturbances. The role of coopetition in CFI’s resilience can be seen in both facets of this idea of resilience – contributing both to unpredictability and to supportive relationships – making coopetition an important set of interactions to explore.
The CFI landscape can shift rapidly, based on policy decisions (e.g. austerity policies), public health crises (e.g. Covid-19), and access to resources like funding and premises, which heavily impact their resilience, as does the need for rapid decision-making and maintained relationships with a broad network of actors. CFIs are made up of a complex ecosystem of actors, delivering food aid through a variety of mechanisms, including through emergency relief, cooked meals, delivery, and out-of-school provisions. Though they can be situated within the localised agri-food system (Burnett, 2023), they are heavily reliant on industrial food systems, and must maintain strong relationships with both. The role of coopetition between actors within the network is important to their ability to maintain resilience because it directly impacts relationships, innovation, and forward-looking strategies, which impacts how well the CFI network as a whole is able to function during times of disruption.
Methods
Data for this study was collected using a ‘patchwork ethnography’ approach (Günel et al., 2020; Södergren, 2022). An innovative addition to social science, patchwork encourages inclusivity through ‘ethnographic processes and protocols designed around short-term field visits, using fragmentary yet rigorous data, and other innovations that resist the fixity, holism, and certainty demanded in the publication process’ (Günel et al., 2020, para 4). This form of data collection is particularly accommodating to researchers with added demands placed on them, particularly women, LGBTQ+, people of colour, and those who manage disabilities. Because data were collected during the Covid-19 pandemic (between 2020 and 2022), it was patchwork ethnography’s flexible and inclusive approach to research that allowed a plurality of ‘fragmentary yet rigorous data’ (ibid).
Patchwork ethnography encourages the ‘patching’ together of data, which offers contextual richness through a diversity of research tools, whilst simultaneously respecting the working and living conditions of both the researcher and researched. Covid-19 restrictions at the time of data collection meant that in-person access was limited, as was as the ability to commit longer stretches of time to full-time in situ ethnography. Whilst the author was embedded within the local agri-food system, and the patching took the form of some traditional ethnographic outputs – ethnographic field notes, participant observation, and semi-structured interviews – it was challenged by access limitations and the need to use alternative patches of knowledge – through short-term voluntary work, attending online meetings, accessing current and historical meeting notes and regional research reports, and through email exchanges. Meetings and interviews were entirely online, and only when CFI members were scheduled to meet or available to talk, and there was limited separation of ‘field and home’ in a traditional ethnographic sense (Fratini and Chur-Hansen, 2022, 3). In this way, the author was able to ‘gently’ observe and work with a number of CFIs in Oxfordshire remotely between 2020 and 2022, build sustained relationships, and gained deep insight into CFI coopetition.
Aggregated cases
Types of organisations represented in the research, showing a multi-stakeholder perspective (
The aggregated cases in this study show the span of actors involved in just a single county, and highlight the everyday coopetition that exists within the wider CFI network. They span a range of CFI actors in Oxfordshire, including food aggregators, which provide a service, collecting and disseminating food from supermarkets and other large donors; community organisations like community centres and homeless projects; food aid organisations, which focus on prepared meals and food education; food banks, which provide emergency relief to those in crisis; fridges, spaces for community food sharing; larders, or membership purchasing schemes which reduce food prices; and the county council and local district councils which engage with CFIs through additional services, funding, and information. The CFI network, as it exists now, is a feature of the pandemic – prior to Covid-19, Oxfordshire’s CFIs worked in smaller groups rather than as a county-wide network.
Although the county of Oxfordshire is relatively wealthy compared to the rest of the country, there are areas of high deprivation. Out of the 112 of wards, 1 17 wards – more than 10% of the county’s residents – are in the top 20% most deprived nationally (JSNA, 2019, 2020). This has been exacerbated by national government austerity policies, the effects of Brexit, and most recently the impacts from Covid-19 (Saxena and Tornaghi, 2018; Thissen et al., 2020; Garnett et al., 2020). Demand for food aid has increased over the past decade, with Brexit affecting supply chains and livelihoods, and Covid-19 causing a spike in demand for assistance due to quarantine, shielding, unemployment, and increases in food prices. Relief has been, and continues to be, delivered by food aid organisations, community groups, places of worship, and local government interventions (Driessen, 2020; Jones et al., 2022). Covid-19 exacerbated the pressures on people, supplies, collaborative working, and competition for resources, highlighting the importance of understanding coopetition and its impact on non-market economies.
Analysis
Data analysis used a combination of deductive and inductive coding, beginning with the concept of coopetition, then allowing new themes and codes to emerge from the data. The process was based loosely on Grounded Theory; however the data were processed toward the end of the study rather than iteratively during the process (Corbin and Strauss, 2015). Rather than adhering to numerous cycles of data collection, coding, and re-sampling, the process could only occur twice. This was primarily due to the practicalities of working during Covid-19, where data collection and on-the-ground work overlapped, with limited time for simultaneous analysis. This still allowed theory construction to emerge from the data (Vollstedt and Rezat, 2019).
Data were analysed using NVivo, following Grounded Theory’s stages of coding: open coding, where data were examined, compared, conceptualised, and categorised; axial coding, where data were re-assembled into groups based on relationships and patterns; and selective coding, which identified and described central phenomena or ‘core categories’ (Corbin and Strauss, 2015; Vollstedt and Rezat, 2019; Wetherell et al., 2001). Themes were evaluated and allowed to evolve based on previous iterations or newly included data at each phase.
Discussion
Coopetition research has gained popularity in recent years (Bengtsson and Kock, 2014; Gernsheimer et al., 2021), but has almost exclusively been explored as a mechanism in the market economy. This paper argues that coopetition exists not only in the market economy, but in diverse economies (Gibson-Graham, 2008), as demonstrated through the data collected on CFI actions and interactions. This paper outlines six ‘insights’ – the results of this work – that examine the nature of coopetition within non-market economies, as explored through Oxfordshire’s CFIs and associated organisations.
The data show that the organisations that make up the CFI network – nominally, in the same ‘sector’ – simultaneously cooperate and compete, though not for market share. This county-wide network is relatively new, a feature of the pandemic which drew them together under a single umbrella for efficiency in communication and action. The potential for joint action around practice and policy is a work-in-progress, and, as can be seen in the insights below, is being negotiated through many newly-established coopetative relationships.
Following the six insights outlined below is a discussion about the role of coopetition in CFI resilience, as well as additions to the framework illustrated above, both of which draw on the insights to bring them to life. These findings are not definitive. Rather, they explore the existence and role of coopetition within the CFI network, as observed during a time of upheaval. The implications of these insights are explored in the conclusion section.
Insight 1: Resource availability strongly impacts CFI coopetition
Resource can come in a variety of ways, including funding, time, energy, access to goods or services, institutional and public support, physical spaces. Although the interplay between competition and cooperation can benefit an organisation or network of organisations, these relationships are complex (Hoffmann et al., 2018; Chiambaretto and Dumez, 2016; Bengtsson et al., 2010). A lack of access to, for example, funding, can lead to increased competition between actors, where cooperation might be beneficial. The same can be said for drains on time and energy. Some actors are more able to switch between different elements of coopetition, or better at handling both competition and cooperation simultaneously. However, task switching can be draining, and CFI coopetition requires actors to navigate complex relationships with a wide range of other practitioners, often rapidly switching back and forth between competition and cooperation (Sokka et al., 2017). This, on top of the fact that CFI work can be stressful, can sometimes lead to a drain on energy and an imbalance in cooperative/competitive behaviours.
Natasha’s Law, or the UK Food Information Amendment, came into force in October 2021, during the Covid-19 pandemic. It introduced a new hurdle to jump in an already disrupted food landscape, requiring food businesses, including CFIs, to label food for sale or distribution with all ingredients and allergens (not including pre-ordered food) (The Food Information (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2019). The law was intended to protect people with food allergies from accidental allergen consumption. Whilst this is certainly beneficial for allergy-sufferers, it caused a wave of panic for CFIs, and placed increased demand on already-stretched staff and volunteers during the Covid-19 pandemic. It decreased the amount of food they felt confident redistributing, in case unwrapped and baked goods had come into contact with other items; increased the amount of work practitioners had to do in researching ingredients, developing lists, purchasing equipment, and printing labels; and meant non-specialists were concerned about interpreting the law, caught between feeding people and not feeding people.
Intended primarily for food sales, this unavoidable resource limitation impacted the capacity and efficacy of CFIs. The ramifications of Natasha’s Law put CFIs in conflict with people with whom they were otherwise cooperating: with distributors, who were wary of passing along unlabelled goods (e.g. baked goods); with policymakers, upon whom they rely for support; and with each other for dwindling resources. The introduction of the law impacted CFI practitioner time and energy. However, it also drove innovation and rapid change, and CFI organisations developed solutions to avoid disrupting day-to-day workflow, reducing food waste, cooperating to share label makers, ingredients lists, research, and training materials. They simultaneously cooperated and competed, primarily driven by resource limitations – both of material goods and of practitioner time and energy.
If CFIs had only competed, practitioners would have spent excess energy on individual CFI survival, potentially destroying relationships with other actors. If they had only cooperated, the largest organisations might have ended up receiving the bulk of the goods from distributors without challenge, leaving smaller organisations with even more limited resources. Coopetition within the CFI network ensured that resources were shared out equitably and moving forwards, shared spaces were created for, for example, label creation, training materials, and best practice.
Insight 2: CFI coopetition happens both upstream and downstream
In supply chain logistics, the concepts of upstream and downstream describe the location or movement of goods, spatial and temporal concepts. Upstream activity generally refers to activity relating to an organisations’ supply – materials, goods, services – but may also represent linkages between organisations prior to action (Quintana-García and Benavides-Velasco, 2004; Hannachi et al., 2020). Downstream generally includes activities post-manufacture, including marketing and distribution, but also includes ongoing relationships with users (ibid). CFIs sit within the food supply chain, receiving goods from primary producers (farms) and distributors (middlemen, supermarkets), and redistributing it to their users. Coopetative interactions can happen upstream – before an action or good reaches them – or downstream – following the engagement, and leading into the next.
This is evidenced by interactions between CFI actors. For example, there was upstream cooperation in the form of willingness to share resources and coordinate events, whilst simultaneously competing over supply chain logistics or suppliers. Downstream cooperation was noticeable as CFIs shared processes, best practice, training materials, and capital goods. However, many CFIs were deeply protective of their domains, particularly their supplier lists. This was due in part to resource scarcity – CFIs were understandably concerned with continuity of food supply, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic, a time of increased demand, and for smaller pots of funding being made available through local councils. Newly-formed relationships and interpersonal issues also contributed to this, which led to some inter-group tensions.
These interactions can be imagined as more circular than linear. Upstream coopetition impacts downstream interactions, which influences future upstream interactions (of which there almost certainly will be). This has a direct impact on CFI resilience, as the balance/harmony of the CFIs must be kept in mind as demand for their services continues to grow. One core element of the community’s resilience was regular CFI working groups, organised and mediated by a community organisation, which helped to negotiate tense relationships and solidify good practice. It was a space where regular contact was made between people, innovative solutions were found for problems, and missions and values could be better understood (see Insight 4). The role of mediator in the middle of CFIs was new, though. Prior to the pandemic, a county-wide CFI network did not exist, and building the network, and relationships within it, was an iterative process. There was the potential risk that the mediator – the county’s food policy council (FPC) – could slide into being a gatekeeper for new entrants or impose hierarchical structures. However, in this case, given the FPC’s time and resource constraints, and the oversight and feedback from the CFI practitioners, this did not pose an issue. The FPC was hopeful that the CFIs would be able to operate without them, and so their upstream interactions focused on fostering good relationships within the network, which would lead to an eventual shift away from the necessity of mediation downstream.
Insight 3: CFI coopetition occurs vertically as well as horizontally
Business theory describes actors along hierarchical axes – horizontal and vertical – with larger or more powerful actors placed on a vertical axis, and those of equivalent size/power along the horizontal axis (Walley and Custance, 2010; Bengtsson and Kock, 2014). Coopetition between actors of various sizes and power has been noted in the business and marketing research, where actors along the supply chain simultaneously cooperate while competing for margins through tapered integration (Hoffmann et al., 2018).
Coopetition along both axes can influence downstream interactions, both in market and non-market economies (Insight 2). The data from the CFIs showed cooperation and competition horizontally in, for example, resource sharing. When an organisation lacked something specific – tinned goods, for example – they could ask other similar network actors to see if anyone had surplus. However, there were also instances of theft noted, where an unknown CFI had poached supermarket donations from another.
Along the vertical axis, there were interesting examples of small-scale food larders or food banks coming into conflict with larger food aggregators, or organisations which collect and redistribute donations. For some, these are helpful mid-level actors in the donations supply chain, organisations that manage the logistics and manpower of collection and redistribution. For others, it interfered with inter-personal relationships, added an extra layer of bureaucracy, and created a pay-to-play (fee-paying) model that small CFIs don’t want to pay or couldn’t afford. They argued that aggregators interfered with the donations stream, turning ‘free’ food into a paid-for commodity. As actors ‘in the middle’, aggregators needed to validate their purpose within the stream, whilst also acknowledging the concerns of smaller CFI organisations. Many of these interactions were brought to light through CFI network meetings, which happened online monthly. This allowed both gratitude and grievances to be discussed, and led to suggestions and solutions.
Insight 4: Missions and values alignment play an important role in CFI coopetition
Each CFI has its own mission and values. Although they often work within a larger network, these values and missions do not always align, which can cause friction or competition, as well as space for healthy discussions and debate.
There is power in CFI diversity, as it means fewer minority groups are side-lined (Uitermark, 2015), more streams of food are utilised, and, generally, more people are fed (Good Food Oxford, 2021a). This improves the community’s resilience, ensuring fewer people slip through the cracks, and there are a wide range of organisations engaged, which provides a safety net. There are instances, however, when misalignments of values can be problematic.
For example, some CFI groups focus entirely on feeding people, regardless of the provenance of the food. Others focus more on the reduction of waste, utilising only unsold farm produce or supermarket surplus. This created tension between a few CFIS when there was a shortage of dry and tinned goods, as well as sanitary items. Some CFIs wanted to jointly purchase pallets of goods to supplement donations. Purchasing large amounts would mean a reduction in cost for each CFI – the more organisations buying in, the better. A few CFIs, however, did not agree that this was a priority, as their primary focus was on waste rather than supplying core goods. This led to debate about organisational practices and personal preferences. When there is limited time to navigate these fault lines, misalignments in values can leave practitioners feeling restive at best, combative at worst.
CFIs are critical to the wellbeing of many UK residents, who rely on them for both emergency and ongoing food assistance. Building trust and alliances is critical to CFIs (Rahmanian and Kesteloot, 2017), and the coopetative nature of these relationships must be carefully negotiated to ensure that values misalignments do not compromise action. Disagreements over missions and values can happen in the background, but shouldn’t compromise the ability of CFIs to serve their users. Importantly, throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, Oxfordshire’s CFIs engaged in regular open CFI network meetings, which were mediated by the county’s FPC. These were mission critical. They allowed practitioners to engage in discussions about values and missions, as well as coordinate day-to-day logistics (which would continue after the meetings via WhatsApp or similar phone-based groups), whilst also acknowledging that each CFI has its own agenda (and that that is ok). This helped ensure CFI resilience by providing a platform for recognition and alignment.
Insight 5: Coopetition between CFI actors can be triggered by external forces
External forces play an important role in CFI coopetition. While CFI coopetition leans towards cooperative-dominant behaviour – strongly cooperative and weakly competitive (Park et al., 2014; Bengtsson and Kock, 2000) – the data showed examples of competition which was triggered by external forces, as opposed to internal forces like values misalignment (Insight 4). This could be due to resource scarcity (Insight 1), or due to shifting landscapes.
At the time of the research, a new entrant to the food scene was an app used by retailers to sell surplus food. Supermarkets, shops, and cafes were quickly shifting to this platform in order to sell their surplus, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic when many cafes had drastically reduced footfall. Much of this food would previously have flowed into the CFI food stream. The app essentially monetised waste, portraying it as a mechanism to reduce food waste. Problematically, this reduction in food flow had a direct impact on where and how much food CFI actors received, intensifying internal competition for increasingly scarce resources as a reaction to stress, and leading to a shift from cooperative-dominant behaviours to equally distributed or competition-dominant interactions. This may not sound problematic, but it can impact the working relationships of CFI actors. Too much competition can negatively impact trust and reciprocity (Amata et al., 2021), one of the core elements of a resilient community (Rahmanian and Kesteloot, 2017).
Competition is often considered a driver of innovation (Park et al., 2014). In this instance, it drove action by CFI representatives who held conversations with the app developers, who have since added in a feature for donations to be sent to CFIs – not a perfect solution, but within the scope of the developers’ practice.
Insight 6: Cooperation in CFIs is often externally assumed, and competition is downplayed
Due to the nature of non-market economies, the competitive element of CFIs is often only visible from inside an organisation – as an employee, volunteer, or other network member. However, community organisations often feel “swathed in soothing feelings” rather than being recognised as sites where “contests are waged over membership and the political subjects and subjectivities that ‘belong’ … [which are] contested, struggled over … a site in which power relationships are both expressed and solidified through citizen formation ” (Staeheli, 2008, 7). This contestation is often not seen externally, and CFIs can present themselves as entirely cooperative. This is often pragmatic – it can help with recruitment, with fundraising, and with apparently ‘neutral,’ non-political working practices.
This misrepresents the dynamic interactions that occur within and between CFIs and the pressure that actors are under, and can prove awkward for new practitioners when competitive behaviours arise unexpectedly in a work environment. For example, a perennial issue in Oxfordshire’s CFIs revolves around aggregating donated food for redistribution. This is done by a number of larger organisations who have direct links with, for example, supermarkets, and have the infrastructure to collect, sort, and store the food for smaller food banks, community fridges, and other CFI organisations. Though logistically beneficial, they also bring issues to the table, including who has control of the food supply; fair division of goods; how relationships with suppliers are built and maintained; proprietary interest around supplier lists; and pushback against pay-to-play models.
Though the literature often treats the outcomes of competition as a binary dogma – creative tensions and innovation are seen as being driven by competition rather than cooperation – there were certainly instances where this occurred. For some practitioners, it was natural to engage in conversations that challenged this aggregator model. There were ongoing heated discussions around access to food via gatekeepers, particularly stemming from smaller organisations who felt their limited resources should be spent on paying staff, not paying for ‘free’ food. Those engaged in competitive behaviour challenged assumptions, aired problems, and spoke truth to power (as they saw it), as part of the process of finding community-led resolutions. They also challenged suppliers to donate directly to smaller food banks, or found new sources of food, including direct discussions with primary producers, or initiating growing and preserving projects of their own.
Some CFI practitioners felt uncomfortable with confrontation and were unwilling to engage in certain group meetings or conversations. However, the process and outcomes of competition over resources or ideas highlighted issues in the CFI food stream as well as relationship problems. This process is important to the CFI network’s resilience, acting both as a pressure valve and a driver for change. Hiding behind a screen of constant cooperation does not alleviate those tensions – being honest about the complex relationships that exist serves the CFI community better.
CFI resilience on the framework
The insights above illustrate coopetition along a pendulous arc, not static but always in motion, evolving, dynamic. Upstream interactions influence downstream; hierarchy and power influence engagement and agency; values and missions misalignment can cause friction; external forces and resourcing impact operations. The demand, policies, funding, supply, staffing, and number of actors can change rapidly, as was seen during the course of this research (which took place during a time of turmoil).
The framework described earlier aims to capture this evolving landscape, influenced by both external forces and internal relationships. Along this heuristic device can also be placed ‘comfort zones’ for CFI resilience, or which type of coopetition is most suitable for a sector, based on the data. These can be conceptualised as ideal zones to be located a majority of the time, where most interactions happen, and which most benefits the community or sector. This does not exclude swings in either direction – entirely competitive action when necessary, entirely cooperative when appropriate. These ‘comfort zones’, combined with the flexibility to swing outside of them, contributes CFIs’ resilience.
In their paper on firm innovation, Park et al. (2014, 218) found that ‘while strong competition and strong cooperation are both individually important, firms that engage in moderately-high competition with their partners are better off if they also develop more intense cooperative relationships with those firms. That is, an equally-balanced coopetative relationship benefited both parties (Figure 3). However, their study looked at firms that were in competition, for example, for market share. CFIs are, as a rule, not in market-based competition (though they may compete for resources like funding or voluntary labour), but rather work as a network to improve access to food and reduce waste, and generally sit in a more cooperative space. A pendulum framework: finding the sectoral comfort zones.
CFIs, which operate with overall high levels of cooperation, can be placed on the pendulum as having a ‘comfort zone’ that is offset from an equal relationship, as suggested for many market-based industries (Figure 3) (Park et al., 2014; Bengtsson and Kock, 2000). This paper suggests that CFIs could be conceptualised as positioned somewhere between an equal relationship and a cooperative-dominant one, reflecting the results from the insights. This is due to the nature of the CFI work, and the importance of nurturing mutually-beneficial, functional relationships across the network. This does not preclude them from swinging in one direction or another, based on changing circumstance, but highlights where an organisation, network, or community might settle, or aim for, for most effective outcomes.
While too much competition within the CFI network can lead to, e.g. relationship issues downstream (Insight 2), too much cooperation can also be an issue, as without competition there is no challenge to power structures (Insight 3) or to assumptions about alignments in missions or values (Insight 4). However, it is the cooperation between CFI actors that generally overcomes issues of resourcing (Insight 1) and external pressures (Insight 5), as well as managing the dynamic tensions within the network (Insight 6). While each of the insights above note examples of cooperation and competition, cooperation is often the starting point, and the go-to when tensions have been resolved. The balance of competition and cooperation described is specific to CFIs (as examined in a certain time and place). This may be different in other sectors. The benefit of the pendulum model is that each sector can locate its own coopetition ‘comfort zone’, whilst acknowledging that actions and interactions may cause it to temporarily swing away from that.
Like coopetition, resilience is not a static concept, but rather describes the need for groups, communities, people, or organisations to have the ability and capacity to respond and adapt to change, surprise, and uncertainty. This is an important concept for ongoing relationships in a diverse network which often operates under high-stress, and the range on the figure allows for what might be considered normal fluctuation. Rapid change and unforeseen circumstances – Covid-19, policy shifts, resource strains, loss of staff/volunteers – can shift the pendulum away from the sector’s ‘comfort zone’, which can compromise actions and interactions, particularly if that shift becomes permanent. This can lead to relationship problems, mistrust, and win-lose scenarios, which are damaging for a community’s resilience, and can negatively impact the activity of non-market economic actors.
Future work could look to add scale to this framework, exploring whether the relationships between CFI actors are strong or weak at different scales, what this means for these coopetition typologies, and whether that helps or hinders resilience building. This pendulum model also raises a question about whether any sector in fact benefits from a competitive-dominant relationship, which exists in the models but is rarely proposed as good or healthy practice.
Conclusion
This paper provides a snapshot of coopetition in a non-market economy, and discusses its impact on resilience. Although coopetition has traditionally been studied within the market economy – particularly in analysing inter- and intra-firm behaviours – this paper argues that coopetition is common practice in both market and non-market economies, and can be investigated more widely.
Due to the nature of their work, CFIs may be assumed by external actors to be entirely cooperative, both within organisations and between them. However, data collected on Oxfordshire’s community food initiatives shows simultaneous competition and cooperation, just as in the market economy, which has an impact on relationships, interactions, and longer-term resilience. Resource was a recurring theme emerging in the research. There was a clear need for time, funding, open lines of communication, and mediation for practitioners working in CFIs. Organised meetings, network events, and WhatsApp groups were all essential for resource exchange, information sharing, and moral support. This did not mean that it was all cooperation – competition was channelled productively to challenge assumptions and tackle resourcing issues, as well as driving innovation. In Bengtsson and Kock’s (2000) typology, CFIs would likely identify as cooperation-dominant, where relationships consist of more cooperation than competition, and actors ‘participate in collective action to achieve common goals’ (416). Whilst this accurately describes the average of the relationships between CFIs, the competitive element within and between CFIs is an important facet of these organisations, shaping innovation and ongoing relationships. Resourcing was a major facet of competition, and could shift the pendulum out of its ‘comfort zone’ and towards more competitive relationships.
External pressures were another recurrent theme in the research. Covid-19, austerity, Brexit, changes to legislation, new technology – this all had a bearing on how CFIs operate under constraints and the demands placed on them. This, on top of the impacts of Brexit, changes to the UK benefits system, and the long-term effects of austerity, may have led to increased competition that in ‘normal’ times might be less severe (or necessary). However, as the demand for CFI services has been increasing for some years now (Power et al., 2020; Good Food Oxford, 2021a) it might be fair to say that increased demand and constantly shifting baselines is the new ‘normal.’ This raises the perennial question: what might organisations do to prepare for future crises? In the context of this research, acknowledging and embracing coopetition, as well as understanding the sector-appropriate ‘comfort zone’ may help to build resilience. The CFIs benefitted from both cooperation and competition – combined, both helped to shape the network and how practitioners progressed their work during the pandemic.
This research took a case study approach, rather than a quantitative approach, amalgamating data from numerous CFIs into a study focused on a single county in the UK. This was appropriate for the exploratory nature of the work (Walley and Custance, 2010), as well as a way of protecting the reputations of practitioners. Future researchers may consider pursuing follow-up studies about coopetition in non-market economies using quantitative methods, larger sample sizes, and other non-market sectors to flesh out the coopetition literature. As with all economics theory, it would be interesting to see more research applied to non-market economies – alternative, solidarity, caring, and others – in the future (Raworth, 2017). Additionally, more research is needed on the factors that mediators play in the ongoing function and adaptation of CFIs, and on network resilience. Some of the groundwork for this has already been done in food policy research (Bassarab et al., 2019; Calori and Magarini, 2015; Gupta et al., 2018; Santo et al., 2021), and the field would benefit from tying these bodies of literature together.
CFIs are critical to the livelihoods of many of Oxfordshire’s residents. This paper has identified the ways in which CFIs simultaneously cooperate and compete, and the impact coopetition has on their actions, and their resilience. One takeaway for CFI practitioners is that it can be difficult to manage both competition and cooperation simultaneously, and that this is something that requires time and energy. Including mediators in multi-stakeholder meetings, clearly signalling organisations’ missions and values, and making tactical decisions about where and when to cooperate or compete may have beneficial knock-on effects downstream. Another takeaway, aimed more towards policymakers and donors, is the impact of resource on the balance between competition and cooperation. CFIs rely on a high level of donated time, money, and goods alongside high levels of demand. Decreasing the former whilst increasing the latter can lead to heightened competition between actors that are more effective when they cooperate. Food aid organisations are already keenly aware that they need more resource – policymakers and donors in a position to assist should communicate directly with local CFIs about what resourcing would best improve their capacity, and work with them to jointly escalate those requirements to higher-level authorities and donors.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
Funding
ORCID iD
