استراتژی همکاری در شبکه های زنجیره تامین

Firms require strategic action to successfully respond to competition within their supply chain networks. The supply chain network is a complicated network model, and its specific context depends on the relationships among the network members. Developing a strategy under these circumstances is not straightforward and must proceed through a series of systematic analyses. The purpose of this paper is to provide strategy development for a firm within a supply chain network. To develop these strategies, this study first classifies supply chain networks as being one of four types, defined by the role of the focal firm relative to its suppliers and buyers: (1) upstream network dominance, (2) focal firm dominance, (3) focal firm obedience, and (4) downstream network dominance. Once the types are defined, the context of each type is further analyzed at the upstream level, the focal firm level, the downstream level, and the network level. These context analyses offer a more detailed understanding of each network's environment. But two questions remain to be answered: what are the sources of advantage in a network environment? And how does one develop a strategy in these complex network environments? The relational view (Dyer & Singh, 1998) provides strong theoretical support for these two questions. Utilizing the relational view and the context analyses, our study develops a focal firm strategy for both upstream and downstream in a supply chain network in the following areas: relation-specific assets, knowledge-sharing routines, complementary resources and capabilities, and network position.

Over the past few decades, supply chain networks have inspired a number of interesting from scholarly studies and practical implications (Stadtler, 2005). In academia, researchers have taken multiple perspectives and have developed many theories to understand the activities involved in inter-organizational collaboration. Since the emergence of international cooperation and the development of vertical disintegration, managers have paid more attention to inter-firm spanning activities than to the optimization of interior processes (Buhman et al., 2005 and Chen and Paulraj, 2004). The common objective of academics and practitioners is to determine how a firm can achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. In marketing, related studies have focused on buyer and supplier relationship management. In operational management, the focus is on optimal manufacturing strategies to improve time, delivery, cost, quality, and design (Halley & Beaulieu, 2009); in addition, the strategic management field highlights the links between an organization and its performance. It is essential for a firm to use strategic to achieve a competitive advantage. Few studies, however, have proposed strategies for a given firm within a supply chain network. Because the supply chain network environment is intricate, it is difficult to directly construct strategic actions to achieve competitive advantage unless we examine the environment's essential characteristics. Several essential characteristics of the supply chain network environment have been investigated: The nature of supply chain networks is that they are a complicated network structure, and each specific relationship within this structure has a unique context. A firm within a business environment is not only a linear sequence supply chain but also a network structure ( Kothandaraman and Wilson, 2001 and Lamming et al., 2000). This network structure covers both the dyadic level (e.g., a single supplier and buyer relationship) and the network level (e.g., the net, the upstream, or the downstream level) (Ritter & Gemünden, 2003). Many firms are tied to each other, forming a specific type of supply chain network. These firms exhibit mutual relationships include: relative power ( Cox, 2001, Cox, 2004, Cox et al., 2002 and Ritter et al., 2004), transactional behavior, specific investment (Bensaou, 1999), and resources (Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978). The relationships between network levels are interrelated (Ritter et al., 2004). Each particular type of relationship in a supply chain network has a specific context and specific characteristics. Strategy, structure, and environment are closely linked (Hall & Saias, 1980). A firm's strategy depends on its external network environment and structure. Therefore, we consider the focal firm to be the center (hub), and the focal firm maintains different relationships with its upstream supply chain (suppliers) and its downstream supply chain (buyers). This analytic architecture, the focal firm to the upstream and the focal firm to the downstream, is usually adopted in the field of supply chain management ( Croom et al., 2000, Harland, 1996, Lambert et al., 1998 and Lambert and Cooper, 2000). These particular relationships also form the distinctive relationship type and structure of the suppliers-buyers network. According to the relative strength of power between the focal firm and its upstream and downstream, we classify the relationship into one of four possible types: (1) focal firm dominance, (2) upstream network dominance, (3) focal firm obedience, and (4) downstream network dominance. Each context is then examined at the upstream level, the focal firm level, the downstream level, and the network level. The network level is the aggregate of the upstream, focal, and downstream levels and includes the relationships of all network members relative to the focal firm. A strategy is established based on these specific relationship types and their different contexts within the supply chain network. However, we seek to identify a theory for supporting and developing inter-organizational strategies that will capitalize on the benefits of the supply chain network and its unique properties to offer a sustained competitive advantage. It is important to note that strategy and management differ between a single firm and a network environment, particularly when we consider the multiple relationships and activities spanning across firms. What are the sources of advantage in the network environment, and how can one develop strategies or provide guidelines in such an environment? It is necessary to have a framework to develop strategies underpinned by these network environments. Dyer and Singh (1998) propose the relational view, which focuses on the network as an important unit of analysis for analyzing a firm's competitive advantage. The competitive advantage and resources result from an inter-organizational network. After exploring the nature of supply chain networks and the theoretical support for them, the route to achieving a cooperative strategy becomes clearer. In this study, we define the cooperative strategy of a supply chain network as a means to enable a given firm to attain competitive advantage with its partnering firms (i.e., upstream suppliers and downstream buyers) within a specific type of supply chain network. The competitive advantage is a supernormal profit jointly generated in cooperative partners and exchange relationships of supply chain networks. Finally, we develop a strategy for a given firm toward its partners under a particular supply chain network with the four following determinants: (1) relation-specific assets; (2) knowledge-sharing routines; (3) complementary resources and capabilities; and (4) network position. The rest of the article is structured as follows: in Section 2, we introduce a literature review of network organization theory and network management and strategy to establish the foundations of supply chain networks. Next, in 3 and 4, we further identify and analyze supply chain network types and contexts. A supply chain network strategy is developed in Section 5, based on the contexts and the relational view. The final section provides conclusions for future research.

Business competition has recently moved from single firms to supply chain networks (Kothandaraman and Wilson, 2001 and Linton et al., 2007). Therefore, understanding, managing and strategizing in the network context has become increasingly important. To develop a strategy for a supply chain network, we must first classify a supply chain network by its different relationship types and situations. As Håkansson and Snehota (1995: 18) stated, “As managerial action is guided by how situations are framed, the relationship perspective and the network approach are unquestionably of consequence to management. The frame of reference adopted affects the way in which the problems in different situations can be perceived and acted upon.” Therefore, after assessing the power of the focal firm relative to its upstream and downstream, we can classify the supply chain network into one of four relationship types: focal firm dominance, upstream network dominance, focal firm obedience, and downstream network dominance. We further explore the contexts of each relationship type at the upstream, focal firm, downstream, and network level. Finally, we develop strategies that can be applied by the focal firm toward its upstream suppliers and downstream customers in accordance with the context and the determinants of the relational view. Practice implications are gained from the strategies as follows: (1) focal firm dominance: The focal firm occupies the dominant position within the supply chain network; it does not use its power to compel its upstream and downstream. Instead, based on the relational view, the focal firm may try to integrate/manage its network partners and enhance all competitive advantages of the supply chain network. Furthermore, the focal firm plays an important role to lead the supply chain network to compete to another supply chain network. (2) Upstream network dominance: The relations are unbalance between upstream suppliers to the focal firm and the focal firm to downstream customers. The focal firm may try to strengthen the relations with its powerful upstream networks, in addition, to manage boundary‐spanning activities for downstream and increase the trading efficiency. (3) Focal firm obedience: Differing from the focal firm dominance case, the focal firm is in the most weakness position. The major way is that the focal firm joins boundary‐spanning activities and plays a complementary role in this supply chain network. By promoting the development of complementary resources and capabilities for its upstream and downstream networks would improve the importance and advantages within the supply chain network. (4) Downstream network dominance: The downstream network dominance case is contrasted with the upstream network dominance. The powerful downstream may take advantage in brand or channels. The focal firm complements with downstream customers’ requirements and shortens products time to market, moreover, allies and secures the relations. The focal firm integrates upstream suppliers that would prevent resource shortages and result in the whole supply chain network efficiently. Håkansson and Snehota (1989) point out three central issues in the network perspective of business strategy: organizational boundaries, determinants of organizational effectiveness, and the process of managing business strategy. Our study has responded to the main network issues and contributed to a theory of cooperative strategy development. The focal firm spans organizational boundaries, cooperates with its trading partners, and develops strategic activities within specific relationships using relational resources (relation-specific assets, knowledge-sharing routines, complementary resources and capabilities, and network position). The cooperative strategy developments are based on the network perspective and build on the relational view. The conceptual directions and strategic suggestions of this study have contributed to the fields of industrial marketing, strategic management, and supply chain management. Nevertheless, there is room for the following further research: • Strategic groups, entry barriers, and mobility of supply chain networks. The firms have homogenous characteristics because they face similar situations. Namely, they are strategic groups in the field of strategic management and are categorized according to specific criteria (Mcgee & Thomas, 1986). Similarly, considering specific relationship types, we could also identify these firms as being in the same strategic group in this supply chain network. Through strategic group analysis, we are able to identify direct competitors (firms in the same group) for a given firm. Hence, we recommend that future studies explore entry and mobility barriers based on the strategic group in the supply chain network. For example: how does a firm, through partner selection, move from its existing group to its goal group? How does a firm collaborate with its trading partners to build barriers to entry against its outside competitors? • Extend study relationships to compound relationships. Ross and Robertson (2007) propose that compound relationships are composed of two or more relationships between a pair of firms such as cooperative relationships (e.g., suppliers to customers) or competitive relationships (e.g. competitors to competitors). It would be valuable to extend our suggested relationships to compound relationships, which include competitors’ relationships, to include the “co-opetition” strategy within the scope of the study (Brandenburger & Nalebuff, 1996). In addition, the cooperative scope could also be extended to other stakeholders.