Purpose: This paper aims to extend the existing views of coopetition into the broader context of open coopetition.

Design/methodology/approach: The authors build on the literature about open innovation cooperation between competitors in the open-source software industry, which we generalize to show that open coopetition between competitors and third parties can be observed in other industries and institutional settings.

Findings: The authors outline a research program on the management challenges of open coopetition-related and argue that open coopetition can not only be observed between business rivals but also between partners from university, industry, government and further institutional backgrounds.

Originality/value: The authors introduce to so-far neglected roots of the emerging research program on open coopetition and extend the prevailing business focus of open coopetition research to also systematically include open coopetition between partners from business and other spheres of society.