روابط فروشنده- فروشنده در سه گانه خریدار - فروشنده: فرضیه های برگرفته شده از هشت مطالعه موردی

Many researchers have studied how the buying company manages its relationship with suppliers (i.e. buyer–supplier relationship). Extending this genre of study, researchers have recently shown interest in investigating how the buying company manages relationships between the suppliers (i.e. supplier–supplier relationship). In other words, just as the relationship with the suppliers does, the relationships between suppliers have strategic implications for the buyer. We present in this study eight cases that describe supplier–supplier relationship dynamics. Using theory building through case studies, we identify five archetypes of supplier–supplier relationships. Each type of relationship is a unique configuration of the relational characteristics. We also present working propositions that associate the antecedent conditions that lead to these archetypes and eventual performance implications.

The extant literature on buyer–supplier relationship explores the vertical relationship between a buyer and suppliers (Ellram and Hendrick, 1995 and Helper, 1991) or between a manufacturer and its distributors (Anderson and Narus, 1990). This dyadic, one-firm versus the-other framework offers a parsimonious abstraction of the inter-firm relationship. In general, the dyadic relationship of a buyer and the supplier has been characterized in the literature in terms of cooperative versus competitive relationships (Choi et al., 2002). The cooperative relationship emphasizes the state of openness and collaboration between a buyer and a supplier; the competitive relationship focuses more on the practice of information guarding and arms-length relationship. On the one hand, a cooperative relationship leads the buyer and suppliers to consider each other as strategic partners and work toward a common goal (Hahn et al., 1990 and Hartley et al., 1997). On the other hand, a buyer and supplier engage in competitive relationship because they are concerned about their own economic risks. Whenever a transaction occurs between a buyer and a supplier, both parties are necessarily concerned about the potential risks associated with the transaction and what that might mean to their relationship (Pilkington, 1999, Walker and Poppo, 1991, Walker and Weber, 1987 and Williamson, 1979).

Using eight cases, we identified five archetypes of supplier–supplier relationships. These archetypes capture the intricacies of the cooperative and competitive relational dynamics between suppliers. We also offered eight propositions that examine the buyer's sourcing strategy, supply structure that involves two suppliers, and the characteristics of the suppliers that are conducive to different types of supplier–supplier relationship. The study has both theoretical and practical implications. It contributes to theory development in supply chain relationship management in two ways. The first contribution concerns supplier–supplier relationship archetypes. Specification of archetypes is an important theory development endeavor. The archetypes abstract a complex social phenomenon based on empirical evidence and our understanding of existing knowledge regarding the phenomenon under investigation (Meyer et al., 1993). Specifically, the five archetypes that emerged from the eight cases condense the intricacies of supplier–supplier relationship dynamics to types that are easy to relate and grasp. Each archetype encompasses certain assumptions, describes certain relational dynamics and forebodes certain performance outcomes for the buyer and suppliers. Second, the five archetypes and the associated propositions attest to the notion of co-opetition between suppliers as articulated by Choi et al. (2002). More importantly, the cases reveal how such co-opetitive supplier–supplier relational dynamics actually play out.