Innovativeness and coopetition in tourism SMEs: comparing two coopetitive networks in Brazil

PurposeThis research aims to analyze the relations between coopetition and innovation, by comparing two coopetitive tourism SMEs networks in Brazil.Design/methodology/approachThe first network comprises 23 SMEs in Honey Island, a natural reserve, and the second network comprises 21 out of 25 SMEs in the Campos Gerais region, recognized by its strong agribusiness. Innovativeness variables included innovation inputs, capabilities, and outputs; and four types of relations that foster innovation were considered, namely, commercial, informational, knowledge, and partnerships. Social network analysis was employed as well as statistical analyses such as Kolmogorov–Smirnov, Mann–Whitney, Spearman correlation and Fischer'sZtransformation.FindingsResults show that coopetition is related to SMEs innovativeness. Commercial relations centralities correlated with many innovation outputs, information and knowledge centralities with some innovation inputs and outputs, and partnerships also with capabilities.Research limitations/implicationsBesides contributing to the literature of innovation in tourism, this paper also contributes to the literature on coopetition and innovation by investigating how different types of coopetition relationships foster innovation inputs, capabilities, and outputs.Practical implicationsManagers may benefit from these findings by fostering specific innovation inputs, capabilities, or outputs by means of different coopetition relations. Similarly, regional tourism policy planners may also improve the innovativeness of tourism small businesses by fostering coopetition networks.Originality/valueThis paper not only compares the innovativeness of two small business coopetition networks in the tourism industry but also analyses quantitively in detail how different types of coopetition relations are related to different innovativeness variables.