Investigating Supplier-Supplier Co-Opetition and Buyer Implications – A Project on Buyer-Supplier-Supplier Triads in a Supply Chain Resilience Context

在过去的几十年里，公司的供应链越来越分散，导致网络在很大程度上碎片化和分散。这种源于资源基础观的“核心竞争力战略”，无疑为企业提供了成本节约、产能灵活、创新等多重优势；然而，这些分解做法也使供应链更加脆弱，容易受到干扰。该学科目前的研究表明，通过“买方-供应商关系管理”工具，采购公司可以减轻这种干扰。然而，这些研究中采用的二元（即买方-供应商）观点忽视了普遍存在的理论论点，即三合一（即买方-供应商-供应商）是供应链中最小的可想象实体。尽管在最近的实际案例中，采购公司经历了供应商互动的直接影响，但在供应链管理研究中，这一领域在很大程度上仍未被观察到。本研究将供应链中的关系管理概念与三位一体作为分析单元联系起来，旨在提高我们对买方如何通过横向连接两个供应商来发展其供应商对中断的弹性能力的认识。项目目标有三个方面：首先，我们试图分析供应商-供应商合作竞争对供应商弹性能力的影响；其次，研究了采购企业积极影响其供应商横向关系的潜力；第三，我们试图确定采购公司的采购杠杆，以便有效地从这些供应商建立的弹性能力中受益。将收集来自发展中国家制造企业的90个买方-供应商-供应商三元组（即270个个别公司观察）的三元组数据，并用于检验所提议的理论框架的各个方面。本项目仅是对供应链三元组的第二次定量实证研究，可以预期具有重要的新理论和管理意义。该项目对当前学术文献有三个重要的理论贡献。首先，它试图验证买方将其弹性能力外包给上游供应链合作伙伴的能力，并评估有效地获得该能力的工具。本研究的结果可能为采购决策标准提供一个全新的视角。其次，该研究还验证了在中断管理背景下供应商-供应商合作竞争的新兴概念。它偏离了当前供应链管理研究的一元和二元观点，以及其方法论和认识论上的缺陷，试图断言供应商-供应商关系对买方确实很重要。第三，它试图突出买方在建立供应商-供应商关系中的作用。

Over the past decades companies have increasingly disintegrated their supply chains resulting in largely fragmented and dispersed networks. This “core competency strategy”, which has its origins in the resource-based view, has certainly provided companies with multiple advantages such as cost savings, capacity flexibility, innovativeness, etc.; however, these disintegration practices have also made supply chains more fragile and vulnerable to disruptions. Current research in the discipline suggests ‘buyer-supplier relationship management’ vehicles through which buying-firms can mitigate such disruptions. However, the dyadic (i.e. buyer-supplier) perspective taken in these studies disregards the ubiquitous theoretical argument for triads (i.e. buyer-supplier-supplier) as the smallest conceivable entity of supply chains. Despite recent practical instances, in which buying firms have experienced direct impacts from their suppliers’ interactions, this arena remains largely unobserved in supply chain management research. Linking the concept of relationship management in supply chains with triads as its unit of analysis, this study sets out to advance our knowledge on how a buyer can develop its supplier’s resilience capability to disruptions through horizontally linking two suppliers. The project goal is threefold: first, we seek to analyze the impact of supplier-supplier co-opetiton on the supplier’s resilience capability; second, we research the potentials for buying-firms to actively influence its suppliers’ horizontal relationship; and third, we seek to identify the sourcing levers of a buying-firm to effectively benefit from the resilience capability established at these suppliers. Triadic data from 90 buyer-supplier-supplier triads (i.e. 270 individual firm-observations) from manufacturing firms in DACH countries will be collected and used to test the various aspects of the proposed theoretical framework. The present project is only the second quantitative empirical study on supply chain triads and significant new theoretical and managerial implications can be expected. The project makes three important theoretical contributions to current academic literature. First, and foremost it seeks to validate the buyer’s ability to outsource its resilience capability to upstream supply chain partners and assesses tools to effectively source said capability. The findings of this study may provide a whole new perspective in terms of procurement decision criteria. Second, the study also validates the still emerging conception of supplier–supplier co-opetition in a disruption management context. It departs from the monadic and dyadic perspectives of current SCM research, along with its methodological and epistemological deficiencies, seeking to assert that supplier–supplier relationships do matter to a buyer. Third, it seeks to bring salience to the role of the buyer in building supplier–supplier relationships.