Hand in Hand with the Enemy Defining a Competitor from a New Perspective

A competitor can generally be defined from an environmental- or cognitive perspective. Within both perspectives a competitor is defined as a rival and cooperation between competitors is disregarded. Basic arguments in this paper are that we should focus on a company perspective when defining a competitor and that the notion of rivalry can be questioned. The aim is to review existing definitions of a competitor by taking into account cooperation between competitors. The nature of the paper is conceptual and it concludes in four propositions.