ما با یکدیگر سهیم شویم ؟ منافع رقابتی و همکاری تامین کننده در توسعه محصول

While supplier involvement in product development projects can contribute with valuable knowledge and expertise, such involvement also poses organizational and managerial challenges, particularly if several rival suppliers are involved. This paper explores these challenges in the wind turbine industry, based on two interrelated Danish case studies. The analysis results in three propositions regarding how supplier rivalry and technological specialization influences roles, coordination patterns and communication between actors in distributed product development projects.

The roles and positions of actors in a division of work are dynamic (Anderson et al., 1998), and strategic tensions may arise among actors with collaborative and competitive interests. But how does rivalry among suppliers affect manufacturers’ management and organization of supplier involvement? In the literature on supplier involvement and collaboration in product development activities, the role of mutual interests and shared incentives for collaboration is often stressed or implied (Camarinha-Matos and Afsarmanesh, 2007). In highly dynamic and knowledge-intensive industries in particular, where product development activities are distributed because of the fragmentary stance of knowledge available and/or because the knowledge base is constantly evolving, firms have common interests, since they compete on a value-network versus value-network basis rather than on a firm-to-firm basis (Normann and Ramirez, 1993). Song and Di Benedetto (2008) introduce the issue of supplier involvement in radical innovation, and use transaction cost theorizing to emphasize that involving suppliers from the outset through tailored production systems may provide benefits for both partners in a radical product development partnership. Whereas Song and Benedetto's analysis deals with dyadic relations, the potential rivalry in triads consisting of one manufacturer and two (or more) suppliers, and how this influences the organization and management of collaboration activities in distributed product development settings, remains unattended. The objective of the research presented in the present paper is to understand how the competitive situation between suppliers influences the organization and management of supplier involvement in product development activities. The analysis is based on two case studies of product development activities in the Danish wind turbine industry. The paper starts with a review of the literature on management and organization of interfirm product development activities. This is followed by an overview of the role and importance of supplier involvement in product development activities in the Danish wind turbine industry. A comparative analysis of product development and management activities in competitive and collaborative-distributed product development settings, respectively leads to three propositions regarding how supplier rivalry and technological specialization influences roles, coordination patterns and communication between actors in distributed product development projects. Finally, implications for managers and further research are presented.

Even though the two case studies analysed above involve suppliers who supplement each other in the one case and are direct competitors in the other, this is not a story about how distrust and fear of dishonest behaviour prevails among competitors trying to collaborate. On the contrary, all parties in the project involving competing suppliers express professional respect for their counterparts, just as they trust that they will live up to the agreements concerned. But the competitive situation nonetheless influences the degree of openness between the project partners and sets limits for the way in which collaboration is organized. The issue of trust cannot be completely ignored, however, since prior personal relations between various actors in the companies may play a role for the extent of responsibility delegated from a manufacturer to a supplier. Understanding the context of collaboration is important for customers and suppliers involved in development projects with contributions from multiple suppliers. For the project-owning customer, it is important to understand how relations between suppliers influence both the way collaboration is organized, the need for coordination, and formal planning. Suppliers, on the other hand, need to be aware that context influences their strategic possibilities. Furthermore, there may be different contextual dimensions: one relates to the individual companies, as exemplified by the context shaped by the merger between Vestas and NEG Micon. Another dimension can be labelled “mega-context”, and refers to the market and technological context, as exemplified by the wind turbine industry's evolution towards a transition phase that gradually influences the supplier competencies required. Our findings imply that supplier rivalry can have an impact on several dimensions as suppliers jockey for position with respect to servicing a particularly important customer. Moreover, their interaction reflects underlying agendas with respect to knowledge-capture that may support or harm their strategic positioning in future exchanges. Further investigation of these issues may not only help unravel the dynamics of supplier involvement in particular, but also provide more general insights into the dynamics of interfirm collaboration.