“For example, if all competitors have changed to a new solution and
we are the only customer buying the old solution, it is good that the
supplier informs us about it.” (Category manager, MobInfra)
In some buyer interviews, a supplier's position in the value network
was cited as a driver of attractiveness. Suppliers with close relationships
with end customers were valued, and suppliers that served other customers
were considered progressive but not viewed as possessing increased
attractiveness. In turn, some supplier respondents stated that
a buyer is attractivewhen it has close organizational links to other companies
that are important to them. In both of these cases, the other partners'
attractiveness was shaped by its ability to serve as bridge to
valuable resources.
4.3. Why do the drivers of attractiveness differ?
We found that different bases of attractiveness played clearly different
roles in the studied BSRs. Economic-based drivers of attractiveness
were stated to be important in all relationships, and the behaviorbased
attributes were important in most relationships. Resource- and
bridging-based drivers, in turn, were stated to be most important in
some relationships but were not perceived to be at all important in
other relationships. The strategic intent of the firmseemed to determine
how important each base of attractivenesswas in the BSR. These observations
are consistent with SET's argument that attractiveness is an attribute
of relationship, not of an actor (Emerson, 1976).
To conceptualize the different strategic intents, we utilized the research
on exploration and exploitation,which understands exploitative
strategic intent as related to effectively utilizing existing capabilities,
technologies, andmarket-offering combinations, and explorative strategic
intent as related to developing new capabilities, technologies, and
market-offering combinations (Gupta, Smith, & Shalley, 2006; Lavie &
Rosenkopf, 2006;March, 1991; Raisch et al., 2009). A buyer perspective
to exploitation in a BSR is characterized by utilizing effectively supplier's
existing capabilities and incremental improvement of supply chain processes.
In turn, supplier's angle to exploitation in a BSR considers increasing
sales of existing products and services, and supporting
current businesses and markets. Accordingly, buyer viewto exploration
in a BSR is designated by utilizing supplier's technological capabilities
for radical performance increase and for new business development.
Supplier view to exploration in a BSR involves utilizing the relationship
for developing new capabilities, technologies, and markets. For both a
buyer and a supplier, explorative strategic intent is related to leveraging
the dyadic relationship to develop business outside the dyad.
We discovered that the strategic intents of the firms in the studied
BSRs involved both exploitative and explorative elements, but their relative
importance varied. This observation is consistent with Farjoun
(2010),who argues that a strict classification into exploration or exploitation
fits poorly with firm activities in reality. The exploitative element
was strongly present in all firms' strategic intent, but the explorative elements
were almost missing in some cases, moderately present in
some, and strongly present in only a few firms. When the strategic intent
was mostly exploitative, economic-based drivers dominated the
perceived attractiveness. The more explorative the strategic intent
was, the more emphasis was put on resource- and bridging-based
drivers of attractiveness. Behavior-based drivers were present in all relationships
but were not as strong when the strategic intent was
primarily exploitative. Utilizing the continuum of exploitative–explorative
strategic intent of a firm in the BSR, we observed how the importance
of the different drivers of attractiveness differed across the
studied dyads (Table 9).
When the strategic intent of the relationship is explorative, a partner
that is at the forefront of a technology or business and systematically innovates
new solutions that drive the entire industry is found to be attractive.
In this situation, all bases of attractiveness are highly
important, and the dynamic capabilities of the other party (Winter,