companies. To gain access to relevant data and obtain results of broad
interest, we selected companies that built their competitive edge substantially
on suppliers and embraced advanced supplier management
and collaboration practices. Both of the selected buyer firms have coordinated
purchasing and supply management structures in place and
employ category strategies that strongly guide interaction with their
suppliers. Coordination and centralization of purchasing are characteristic
of a professional purchasing function (Faes, Matthyssens, &
Vandenbempt, 2000). To assesswhether the determinants of attractiveness
are industry contingent, we further sought companies from different
industries.We selected from the companies that met these criteria
those with managers who expressed a willingness to participate in the
study. This criterion was considered important because the study required
a great deal of effort, especially from the buyer companies. We
collaborated closely with the forum of purchasing professionals of the
Finnish Association of Purchasing and Logistics in our search for suitable
buyer companies. Severalmeetingswere heldwith the board of the purchasing
forum.
Negotiationswere conductedwith six companies, two ofwhich, one
in the telecommunications industry (MobInfra, a pseudonym), the
other in the pharmaceuticals industry (PharCo, also a pseudonym),
were subsequently analyzed. The initial points of contact at the buying
companies held the titles of purchasing director and purchasing development
director. After explaining the research objectives and our initial
plans for carrying out the study, we invited the contact persons to the
steering group for the research project and held severalmeetings to refine
the research plan to ensure that it bothmet academic goals andwas
considered relevant to the participating companies.
The second step, to select the suppliers, was undertaken together
with the main contact persons at the buyer companies. Three criteria
were used in the selection process. First, we sought relationships in
which the buyers had an interest in influencing their suppliers in
many areas including product design, production, quality, and the supply
chain. Second, to increase the external validity of our findings, we
selected suppliers from a variety of purchasing categories. Third, the
suppliers had to be salient in their respective categories, salience
being defined as being nominated as a significant supplier in category
strategy. Three suppliers were selected for each buyer, yielding a total
of six buyer–supplier dyads. Both buyers being engaged in a remarkable
amount of collaboration with the selected suppliers at a variety of functional
and organizational levels, we deemed it adequate to start with
these six dyads. Although our intention was to add suppliers later, if
necessary, we soon realized that the amount of data obtained from the
six dyads was at the limits of our ability to manage.
The third step was to select the interviewees. First, the contact
persons at the buyer companies listed the individuals in their organizations
who had the most contact with the selected suppliers. Because
each supplier was from a different category, and the supplier
interface at the buyer companies was organized by category, each interviewee
represented only one supplier relationship. Thus, we had
three sets of interviewees at each buyer company. Although most
worked in procurement, some of these individuals were from product
design, manufacturing, and quality management (see Table 2).
Interviewees from procurement held a variety of positions, so each
had a different perspective on the supplier relationship. Next, the
buyer companies identified their contact persons at the supplier
companies. These contact persons then nominated the persons in
their respective organizations who would participate in the study.
Positions of the interviewees from the suppliers included managers
of key accounts, operations managers, sales managers, purchasing
managers, and quality managers. High-level executives interviewed
at HiTecCo, ContrMan, and PacCo were generally the contact points
with whom people at the buyer companies interacted on a regular
basis. The selected dyads are described in the next section, the last
steps of our methodology (i.e., data collection, analysis, and synthesis)
in the following sections.
3.2. Case dyads
MobInfra, one of the buyer firms, is among the top five telecommunications
technology providers in theworld, based on market share. The
three suppliers toMobInfra selected for the study are also ranked in the
top five in their respective industries worldwide. HiTecCo, which supplies
technically demanding components critical to the performance of
MobInfra's end product, is considered a technology leader in its industry.
ContrMan, one of MobInfra's largest suppliers, has plants located
near MobInfra's markets to generate manufacturing capacity and serve
as buffers, and collaborates with MobInfra on product development
and design and new product introduction (NPI) activities. CoCom
being an original equipment manufacturer widely considered the technological
leader in its field, theMobInfra–CoComrelationship is strongly
driven by technology strategy.
PharCo, an R&D-based pharmaceuticals and diagnostics company focused
on the development ofmedicinal treatments and diagnostic tests
for the globalmarket, although a relatively small player globally, is well
positioned within European markets. Like the pharmaceutical industry
generally, PharCo is facing tougher price competition as the industry's
focus shifts from proprietary to generic products. PacCo, a small, local
supplier of printed products and services for packages and advertisements,
has a long and stable relationshipwith PharCo.MedDev is a globally
operated supplier of drug delivery, medical devices, and diagnostic
disposables. MedDev became a major supplier to PharCo when it replaced
a poorly performing supplier a few years earlier. BulkMf, a manufacturer
of bulk actives for the pharmaceuticals industry that strives to
achieve cost-efficient quality leadership in its globalmarkets, is another
fairly new supplier to PharCo, and one of its first low-cost country
suppliers.
3.3. Data collection
The data collection instrument used in the interviews (provided on
request) included the following sections: information about the interviewee
(e.g., position and job history); semi-structured questions
about the objectives and success of the buyer–supplier relationship
and ongoing joint development efforts; open-ended questions about
the buyer's and supplier's attractiveness. (Data acquired from two
pages of structured questions asked during the same interviews were
used in a separate study.) The open-ended questions were intended to
identify both elements of attractiveness that exist in the buyer–supplier
relationship and elements that do not exist but are nonetheless perceived
to be important. We also explored through these questions the
companies' awareness of the attributes that render each attractive.
The open-ended questions employed the principles of focused
(i.e., thematic) interviews, whereby interviewees are encouraged to
broadly explain their perceptions of the question being asked (Yin,
2009). The interviewers, to ensure that it was correctly and uniformly
understood, clarified the meaning of “attraction” for the interviewees.
Sharpening questions were included in these discussions.
Between January and September 2009, we conducted interviews
with individuals located in China, India, Finland, Germany, and the
United States. Each interview lasted from45 min to 2 h.Mostwere conducted
face-to-face, interviews with individuals remotely located via
teleconference. Because the selected companies declined to allow the
interviews to be recorded, other means were employed to ensure the
reliability of the data used in the analyses. At least two researchers
took notes at all but two interviews, and subsequently crosschecked
each other's notes, which were then sent to the interview subjects for
confirmation. Lastly, company representatives were asked if they had
found anything of concern in the data, which was reported both in
paper format and in workshops that provided an additional venue in
which to verify observations made during the interviews.
Other sources of data included several workshops, including kick-off
workshops at which we collected basic information about the buyer