Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The last decade has seen the emergence of a range of more cooperative strategies as firms acknowledge a much higher level of interdependence with their suppliers. Although most research focuses on the flow of physical products through the “supply network,” researchers and practitioners increasingly argue that knowledge is the critical resource for competitive performance. As a result there is a growing body of work exploring supplier involvement in product design and innovation more generally ( Hartley, Zirger, and Kamath, 1997 ; Ragatz, Handfield, and Scannel, 1997 ). Although “developing, improving, adopting, protecting and renewing knowledge” ( Badaracco, 1991: 1 ) has always required inputs from the supply market beyond the boundaries of the firm, today's more cooperative strategies are a function of changing competitive circumstances. It is increasingly common to second employees of a supplier (or customer) company, familiar with that firm's product and/or process technology , to the customer (or supplier) for a period of time. The objectives might include design for manufacture , enhancing quality, and improving technical performance. Similarly, customers may send their own engineers to supplier firms in order to facilitate improvements or learn of supplier developments that could be incorporated into their own new products. This exchange of technical personnel has become ... log in or subscribe to read full text