Managing collaboration within networks and relationships

Building on the central theme of the inaugural meeting of the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) Group in Asia in Perth 2002, we have selected those papers that best reflect our current thinking on managing collaboration in networks and relationships. In the nine papers that follow, we examine the impact of time, market orientation, culture, communication, and trust on relationships and examine these within the context of both the manufacturing and service industries using a variety of alternative approaches.     

Do special issues offer something special? An overview of research trends in Telecommunications Policy special issues

This study explores the value of special issues by analyzing the characteristics of special issues of Telecommunications Policy (TP). Specifically, this study examines the status of special issue publications, the characteristics of their articles compared with those of general issues, and the factors affecting article citations. For the analysis, all information on TP articles published from 1976 to 2018 was collected from the Scopus database. A comparative analysis as well as a negative binomial regression were conducted on papers published after 1994, when the first special issue was published. The results show that special issues are distinguished from general issues by various characteristics, such as multinational author collaboration, number of references, keywords, and funding. While general issue papers are more frequently cited in academia, special issue papers show better performance in terms of online captures and social media sharing. Moreover, the smaller number of variables affects the frequency of citations in the case of special issues, revealing that content and format are more influential than author factors.     

Transatlantic innovation infrastructure networks: public-private, EU–US R&D partnerships

Collaborative, team-based research is now the most significant mode of activity in the global scientific community. Anecdotal and statistical evidence shows moreover that collaboration in scientific research is increasingly global in nature. That is, the groups of researchers who are involved in scientific progress often span one or more nations in origin, location and/or sponsorship. Another significant trend in recent cases of scientific collaboration is the increase in cross-sectoral cooperation, where researchers in a group are employed by government, private industry, and/or academic and other non-profit institutions.
In this paper, we review the scale, scope and intensity of cross-national, cross-sectoral research collaboration through the analysis of historical data on co-authorship of scientific publications. The first part of the paper reviews existing literature on the analysis of co-authorship data, and discusses the limitations of this form of analysis and typical strategies to mitigate those limitations. The second part of the paper describes a preliminary study of cross-national, cross-sectoral scientific collaborations covering the years 1988 through 1997, where we examined the scale (volume of co-authored papers), intensity (co-authored papers versus other kinds of co-authorship), and scope (patterns in co-authorship) for cross-national, cross-sectoral collaborations. The conclusion of the paper discusses significant trends and patterns derived from this study, and their implications for further research into these types of collaborations.     

The role of space in interdisciplinary collaboration in design education

The growing interest in the collaborative design education for innovation has mainly been concerned with students and learning outcomes. We know less about the collaboration between the tutors who teach interdisciplinary design courses. Addressing this gap, this article explores the effect of space on the interdisciplinary collaboration between faculty members from the fields of industrial design, architecture, engineering and business administration, who come together to design and conduct an extra-curricular educational activity, Interdisciplinary Design Studio (IDS) at METU. The empirical basis of this study comes from the interviews with the faculty members and the participant observation notes generated during the IDS meetings. The findings show that the effect of space on collaboration becomes evident over three issues, (1) the participation of tutors, (2) the commonality of their expectations from a design project, and (3) the interaction not only between students and tutors, but also among tutors as an interdisciplinary team.     

The dynamics of industrial organization

This paper introduces the special issue of The Review of Industrial Organization on ‘The Dynamics of Industrial Organization’. What binds these papers together is a focus on markets in motion—the process by which new firms enter an industry, either grow and survive, or else ultimately exit out of the industry. In contrast to more traditional static analyses, the concern of these papers is identifying where do firms come from and what happens subsequent to their entry. Influences of geographic as well as product space are found to exert an influence on the dynamics of industrial organization.

     

Technology management and collaboration profile: virtual companies and industrial platforms in the high‐tech biotechnology industries

In this paper we discuss collaboration in the area of technology management. We propose the concept of collaboration profile to describe various forms of networks along key differentiating characteristics. The collaboration profile is then applied using two examples to illustrate different forms of collaboration in the biotechnology industries, the ‘virtual company’ and the ‘industrial platform’. Based on interviews with members of a virtual company as well as members of industrial platforms and drawing conclusions from theoretical insights, the advantages and disadvantages of these forms and their suitability for different stages of the technology life cycle will be discussed. Specifically, we address the following questions: What kind of collaboration profile applies to virtual companies and industrial platforms? How does the suitability of collaboration forms vary with the stage of technology development? Furthermore, we demonstrate the usefulness of the collaboration profile for analysing features and potential problems of collaborations by describing two examples. Focusing on the key characteristics of a collaboration helps to check the appropriateness of the collaboration form and to identify and manage respective problems.     

Managing innovation in an emerging sector: the case of marine-based nutraceuticals

Biotechnology is turning a traditionally low-tech industry (food) into a high-tech industry (functional food/nutraceuticals). There is a real need to enhance managerial understanding by clarifying the nature of innovation processes in the functional food industry, including the role of research and development (R&D) and collaboration. The present investigation focuses on a particular segment of the functional food industry, viz. marine-based nutraceuticals. We find that various hurdles thwart the fullest realization of the business potential of marine bio-actives in the pharmaceutical space. However, the innovation of commercially viable marine-based nutraceuticals/cosmeceuticals is yet possible if the extraction route for supply is a feasible fallback option, should industrial-scale synthesis prove elusive. Effectiveness in innovation is facilitated by the collaboration of various disciplines including epidemiology, traditional/folkloric medicine, aquaculture/fermentation, natural products chemistry, toxicology, and relevant strands of medical, pharmacological, and clinical research. In this regard, the inter-disciplinary field of ethno-pharmacology rises to prominence. Universities and government research institutes may be well positioned to drive such collaboration and reap the benefits from problem definition in addition to problem solving. Toward this end, the findings from the present study are integrated into a phased approach toward the innovation of commercially viable marine-based nutraceuticals that is targeted at entrepreneurs in this field.     

Understanding the role of marketing-purchasing collaboration in industrial markets: The case of Russia

This study aims to investigate the role of interfunctional collaboration between marketing and purchasing functions in industrial companies. Interfunctional collaboration is considered as a measure of the internal alignment and partnership between departments in the firm, which in turn contributes to the creation of sustainable advantages via improved external partnerships and facilitating demand chain integration. We test the impact of customer orientation as well as the interactions between departments (specifically marketing and purchasing) as collaboration antecedents, and analyze the direct impact of marketing-purchasing collaboration on business performance. The model is tested on a sample of 148 industrial companies in Russia with two key respondents in each firm, incorporating the purchasing as well as the marketing perspective. The results show that marketing-purchasing collaboration mediates the effects of interfunctional interaction as well as customer orientation on business performance. Alternative model testing shows that the direct effects of these antecedent constructs on performance are non-significant in the context of Russian industrial companies.     

Student perceptions and performance in online and offline collaboration in an interior design studio

Competence in collaboration is one of the critical abilities that interior design majors are expected to develop during the course of their education; however, few students are competent to collaborate with others online. The purposes of this study were to identify student perceptions and performance in online collaboration compared to those of offline collaboration and to explore the way students collaborate online. A total of 29 junior interior design students participated in the study. After finishing each online and offline collaborative project, they completed a survey. The findings show that students are more satisfied with offline collaboration and perceive offline collaboration as more effective than online collaboration; however, no significant difference was apparent in student performance online and offline. In addition, the findings show the need to provide appropriate online interface for design collaborations. This paper includes lessons learned and recommendations to promote both online and offline collaboration in a design studio.     

R&D Partnerships and Innovation Performance: Can There Be too Much of a Good Thing?

R&D collaboration facilitates the pooling of complementary skills, learning from the partner as well as the sharing of risks and costs. Research therefore stresses the positive relationship between collaborative R&D and innovation performance. Fewer studies address the potential drawbacks of collaborative R&D. Collaborative R&D comes at the cost of coordination and monitoring, requires knowledge disclosure, and involves the risk of opportunistic behavior by the partners. Thus, while for lower collaboration intensities the net gains can be high, costs may start to outweigh benefits if firms perform a higher share of their innovation projects collaboratively. For a sample of 2735 firms located in Germany and active in a broad range of manufacturing and service sectors, this study finds that increasing the share of collaborative R&D projects in total R&D projects is associated with a higher probability of product innovation and with a higher market success of new products. While this confirms previous findings on the gains for innovation performance, the results also show that collaboration has decreasing and even negative returns on product innovation if its intensity increases above a certain threshold. Thus, the relationship between collaboration intensity and innovation follows an inverted‐U shape and, on average, costs start to outweigh benefits if a firm pursues more than about two‐thirds of its R&D projects in collaboration. This result is robust to conditioning market success to the introduction of new products and to accounting for the selection into collaborating. This threshold is, however, contingent on firm characteristics. Smaller and younger as well as resource‐constrained firms benefit from relatively higher collaboration intensities. For firms with higher collaboration complexities in terms of different partners and different stages of the R&D process at which collaboration takes place, returns start to decrease already at lower collaboration intensities.     

Intermediaries in power-laden retail supply chains: An opportunity to improve buyer–supplier relationships and collaboration

Despite the benefits of buyer and seller collaboration and hence relationships extolled in extensive studies, issues of relationship power inhibit implementation of collaborative and relational approaches, particularly in some parts of the retail sector. Further, most research regards buyer–supplier collaboration and relations as dyadic or focal relationships, or perhaps in a network context, and typically investigates buyer–supplier collaboration and relations from a power-dependency perspective; and within vertical supply integration. Little attention has been given to the potential role of supply chain intermediaries, such as logistics service providers, in objectively and independently determining and managing the course of buyer–supplier collaboration and relations in a business-to-business context. This article appraises the potential role of buyer–supplier collaboration and relations and their relevant opportunities in the power-laden, contentious environment of the retail grocery sector. With an interdisciplinary approach, drawn from supply management, relationship management, and logistics and supply chain management, this article emphasises the importance of horizontal collaboration using fourth-party logistics structures as horizontal intermediary conduits, who act independently between retailers and suppliers to facilitate collaborative and relational activity.     

The impact of aligned rewards and senior manager attitudes on conflict and collaboration between sales and marketing

This research was carried out using five case studies and a survey to discover how sales and marketing managers are rewarded and if alignment of rewards can improve collaboration between sales and marketing and/or reduce inter-functional conflict. In addition, it examined the role of senior managers' support for coordination on sales/marketing collaboration. The results reveal that organizations which use aligned rewards can increase sales/marketing collaboration through such reward structures, but not reduce inter-functional conflict. In addition, senior managers' support for coordination is vital, as it increases sales/marketing collaboration, and strongly reduces inter-functional conflict. This is important because inter-functional conflict has a strong negative impact on collaboration between sales and marketing in business to business firms.     

A dynamic model of supplier–customer product development collaboration strategies

This study examines transitions between different types of product development collaboration in supplier–customer settings, the events that trigger such transitions, and the emerging requirements for suppliers. The current study contributes to the literature regarding supplier and customer involvement by combining previously discovered types of collaboration into a dynamic model that describes these different types as alternative modes of collaboration that can be implemented in a relationship. Transitions between different types of collaboration are identified in a longitudinal case study. Three of the four transitions identified took place in the same dyad, which demonstrates that it is possible to change the type of collaboration without losing the advantages of a long-term relationship with a customer. The most radical change in collaboration—the change from supplier involvement to customer involvement—involved temporarily discontinuing the original relationship, which indicates that this transition incorporates the highest risk of relationship termination. By offering a dynamic model for product development collaboration, this study is the first to analyze changes between different types of customer–supplier product development collaboration from a supplier's perspective. The dynamic view is important for companies seeking to take advantage of their long-term relationships instead of starting new ones when new requirements for product development collaboration emerge.     

Effects of Collaborative Communication on NPD Collaboration Results: Two Routes of Influence

Although NPD collaboration with external partners has become the next generation in NPD practice, the discussion concerning how to organize collaboration so as to obtain better results is far from over. Since communication is the most important element in successful interfirm exchange, this study focuses on the impact of collaborative communication and its facets—frequency, formality, reciprocal feedback, and rationality—on NPD collaboration results. In order to explain how collaborative communication can best be managed to enhance NPD collaboration results, this research combines the relational and resource‐based views, proposing the existence of two routes of influence: the direct resource‐based route and the indirect relational route mediated by trust. Using a sample of 207 NPD collaboration projects of innovative firms, empirical findings indicate that reciprocal feedback–rationality and frequency play an important role in product quality and adherence to budget and schedule, respectively, even without trust. Moreover, the trust between partners substantially reinforces the positive influence of reciprocal feedback–rationality on NPD collaboration results and makes the effect of formality significant. Therefore, the two alternative routes are confirmed as important paths to new product success, which provides relevant managerial implications.     

Does the medium matter in collaboration? Using visually supported collaboration technology in an interior design studio

With the recognition of the importance of collaboration in a design studio and the advancement of technology, increasing numbers of design students collaborate with others in a technology-mediated learning environment (TMLE); however, not all students have positive experiences in TMLEs. One possible reason for unsatisfactory collaboration experiences is that existing text-oriented collaboration technology may not fully support interior design students’ needs for spontaneous interaction with visual images. The purpose of the current research was to determine whether a visually supported collaboration technology (VSCT) for designers, enhances students’ collaboration experiences in a TMLE. A total of 28 junior interior design students participated in the study, all of whom engaged in similar group projects via two collaboration modalities: face-to-face and VSCT. The results show that collaboration modalities influence students’ learning experiences, in particular, achievement and confidence in completing collaborative tasks. When using VSCT, students achieved significantly higher grade and demonstrated higher confidence in completing collaborative tasks compared to face-to-face collaboration; however, no significant differences were reported in either their perception of the collaboration process or their evaluation of the medium in the two collaboration modalities. The findings demonstrate that VSCT enhanced students’ collaboration experiences in design studio. Discussion and implications are provided to facilitate design students’ positive collaboration experiences in a TMLE.     

Realising the Potential – and Lost Opportunities – for Peer Collaboration in D&T Setting

This paper follows up our theoretical discussion of the potential for collaborative problem solving in Design and Technology (Hennessy and Murphy, 1999). In this paper we report our empirical investigation of peer collaboration in a setting where we identified the presence of significant pre-conditions for productive collaboration. The study investigated the participation of two boys aged 13 who worked together with their teacher over 8 weeks in designing and making an aid for a child with a disability. We analysed their participation using a framework of key features derived from the research literature. Our analyses yielded evidence of effective collaboration in the early design stage, but the students' collaboration and their progress were subsequently undermined. The reasons related to the students' ability to collaborate and the tension for the teacher between students' learning needs and client needs within an authentic activity. The outcome was a successful product but a wealth of lost opportunities – and lack of support – for the students' collaborative problem solving and Design and Technology (D&T) learning. Our observations confirm that despite little evidence of collaboration in D&T, this setting offers extensive resources for supporting collaboration in joint design, planning and problem-solving activities. We also identify impediments to collaboration as a learning mechanism. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

A survey of the current state of business policy research

This paper is an analysis and evaluation of a cross-section of current research in the policy area. The data used as representative of current policy research are the 51 papers submitted for possible presentation at the 1979 Business Policy and Planning Division Meeting in Atlanta, and the evaluations of these papers by blind reviewers. The areas covered by the papers are compared to the recommendations found in Schendel and Hofer (1979). The research methodologies used are also enumerated. The quality of the papers, as perceived by the blind reviewers, is presented by category—conceptual, empirical, and teaching.     

Time allocations across collaborations of academic scientists and their impact on efforts to commercialize novel technologies: is more always better?

We investigate how time spent in different collaborative research arrangements by academic scientists affect their propensity of involvement in the commercialization of novel, university-originated technologies. Three common collaborative strategies used by academic scientists: (1) internal (within the research group or within the home university) research collaboration; (2) cosmopolitan research collaboration (with scientists in other US or foreign universities); or (3) university–industry research collaboration are assessed. Drawing on the concepts of cognitive and spatial distance, the empirical findings suggest that only one internal research collaboration strategy has a significant impact on the propensity of academic scientists to engage in the commercialization of novel technologies with a private firm; however, this relationship is inverse U shaped. More importantly, academic scientists adopting a university–industry collaboration strategy and spending more research time in such an arrangement have a significantly stronger propensity for being involved in technology commercialization with a private firm; however, this relationship is inverse U shaped as well. We discuss the managerial and policy implications of the findings.     

An Examination of Collaboration in High-Technology New Product Development Processes

For more than a decade, researchers have explored the benefits of eliminating organizational boundaries between participants in the new product development (NPD) process. In turn, companies have revamped their NPD processes and organizational structures to deploy cross-functional teams. These efforts toward interfunctional integration have produced a more responsive NPD process, but they don’t represent the endgame in the quest for more effective NPD. What’s next after the interfunctional walls come down?Pointing out that many high-tech firms have already taken such steps as integrating customers and suppliers into the NPD process, Avan Jassawalla and Hemant Sashittal suggest that such firms need to go beyond integration and start thinking in terms of collaboration. Using information from a study of 10 high-tech industrial firms, they identify factors that seem to increase cross-functional collaboration in NPD, and they develop a conceptual framework that relates those factors to the level of cross-functional collaboration achieved in the NPD process.Compared to integration, collaboration is described as a more complex, higher intensity cross-functional linkage. In addition to high levels of integration, their definition of cross-functional collaboration includes the sense of an equal stake in NPD outcomes, the absence of hidden agendas, and a willingness on the part of participants to understand and accept differences while remaining focused on the organization’s common objectives. Collaboration also involves synergy—that is, the NPD outcomes exceed the sum of the capabilities of the individual participants in the NPD process.Their framework suggests that structural mechanisms such as cross-functional teams can provide significant increases in NPD-related interfunctional integration. However, high levels of integration do not necessarily equate to high levels of collaboration. Characteristics of the organization and the participants also affect the level of collaboration. For example, achieving a high level of collaboration depends on participants who contribute an openness to change, a willingness to cooperate, and a high level of trust. Their framework also points to key organizational factors that affect the level of collaboration—for example, the priority that senior management gives to NPD and the level of autonomy afforded to participants in the NPD process.     

Success factors for collaborative product development: a study of suppliers of information and communication technology

It is apparent that more and more organizations are embarking on collaborative ventures to develop products. This is particularly evident in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sectors, so much so that part of the 'received wisdom' of ICT companies is that collaboration is the preferred route for product development. The benefits of collaboration have been well documented and are linked to the complexity and costliness of product development and the need for inputs from wide and varied areas of expertise as well as shorter lead times for product development. But the risks and costs of collsborative product development have been less well defined. In this paper, it is argued that the alleged rewards of collaboration may not be experienced in practice and that collaboration can lengthen the product development process, add to the cost of product development and prove difficult to control. However, management practice can facilitate the effective outcome of collaborative product development and the critical factors affecting the likelihood of successful management practice are presented here.