Managing triadic supplier relationships in collaborative innovation projects: a relational view perspective

Purpose Suppliers are essential partners in innovation projects, as they own resources, knowledge assets and capabilities that complement those of buying firms. In today’s competitive environment, firms may choose to collaborate with suppliers beyond dyads, forming triadic or three-party relationships. Using the theoretical lens of the relational view (RV), this study aims to explore what type of triad configurations firms use to govern supplier relationships in collaborative innovation projects, how they choose to share resources and implications for project performance. Design/methodology/approach The authors use interview data from buyers and suppliers in six case studies of firms involved in ten collaborative innovation projects. The four constructs of the RV are used to observe how firms govern triadic relationships, combine complementary resources, invest in relationship-specific assets and manage information and knowledge exchange with and between suppliers in innovation projects. Findings Four archetypes of triadic relationships in innovation projects – labeled Triangle, A-frame, D-Frame and Line – are presented and characterized in terms of their structural and relational features. The authors discuss how each triad archetype is applicable to different innovation projects according to specific project characteristics. Originality/value This study is pioneering in its empirical examination of triadic relationships in collaborative innovation projects. It provides a novel typology of four archetypes of triad from the perspective of collaborative relationships with suppliers. Through applying the RV, it advances understanding of how triadic relationships are governed, how they invest in relationship-specific assets, how they combine complementary resources and how they exchange knowledge and information in each type of triad appropriate to different innovation project settings. To date, much of the extant literature has focused on dyads.

Building Innovation Capabilities on Collaboration and Market Orientation for Improving Marketing Performance of Wood Furniture Craft

This research aims to test the direct influence of market orientation and innovation capabilities collaboration, with relationship marketing orientation and excellence as mediating variables, on the marketing performance of the micro industry of wood furniture handicrafts. The data was collected using questionnaires submitted by 242 people, and the analysis was carried out using SmartPLS software. The significant impact of collaborative innovation ability and relational marketing orientation on market orientation was shown to have no effect on competitive advantage. The innovation capabilities of collaborating are known to have no significant impact on marketing performance. Competitive advantage has a relationship with marketing performance, and relational marketing orientation has a significant impact on the ability of collaborative innovation. It was also found that relationship marketing orientation has a significant effect on marketing performance. This study is related to improving the marketing performance of the micro industry of wood furniture handicrafts, which has a limited scope, so the results of this study can't be generalized. It was also difficult to determine if there was any bias from the respondents. The marketing orientation of relationships and competitive advantages have contributed significantly to marketing performance. The wood furniture handicraft micro industry must improve collaboration capabilities with dealers and customers and use this as a strategic component to improve the marketing performance of the woodcraft industry. The novelty of this research is related to the capability of collaboration innovation, which is able to improve the marketing performance of small industries.

Research on the Management Optimization of Industry-University-Research Cooperation Projects in Colleges and Universities from the Perspective of Collaborative Management

Actively launching industry-university-research cooperation projects in colleges and universities is an effective way to build an innovative country. The optimization of collaborative management of industry-university-research cooperation projects in colleges and universities determines whether scientific and technological achievements can be quickly transformed into real productive forces and whether the construction of an innovative country can be accelerated. Formulating scientific and reasonable policies, optimizing incentive strategies, risk management and benefit distribution, as well as optimizing personnel management, production management, and collaborative innovation knowledge management are conducive to improving the management efficiency of industry-university-research collaborative innovation and promoting the process of building an innovative country.

Simulation Study on the Evolutionary Game Mechanism of Collaborative Innovation in Supply Chain Enterprises and Its Influencing Elements

Collaborative innovation between companies is critical for increasing supply chain value. However, as a dynamic game process, the collaboration between manufacturer, provider, and seller in the supply chain is influenced by a range of elements. This paper is set out to investigate the collaborative innovation strategy adopted by manufacturer, supplier, and distributor (the “three players”). To meet this end, an analytical framework was built to study the evolutionary game of collaborative innovation in supply chain enterprises. Based on the analysis, this research further studied the dynamic evolutionary mechanism and influencing elements through four different simulation cases. The research showed the following. (1) When the three players have equal innovative capability, they are more willing to contribute to innovation if the projected revenue is higher reflecting an increasing coefficient of collaborative innovation gains. As a result, the three players are more likely to agree on their cooperation approach. (2) When the three players have different independent and innovative capabilities, they are more willing to innovate if the collaborative innovation gain coefficient increases, but supply chain players with stronger capability are more active to innovate than their peers. In other words, strong innovators attach particular attention to innovation. (3) When any collaborative innovation could generate profits for all players in the supply chain, the player who enjoys the benefit but lacks innovative capability will be unwilling to cooperate with others if additional gains rise. Thus, better maintenance of the stability of the collaborative innovation system requires a strictly implemented coordination mechanism.

Research on Evolutionary Game of Collaborative Innovation in Supply Chain under Digitization Background

The development of digital technology has been rapidly pushing forward collaborative innovation in supply chain. This paper analyzes the influence mechanism of information sharing, resource integration, and trustworthiness among the enterprises in supply chain to collaborative innovation under the digitization background and builds the model of dynamic evolutionary game in which enterprises in supply chain participate collaborative innovation, and then, through the methods of model solution analysis and numerical simulation the following concrete conclusions are reached: the increase of data sharing profit coefficient, resource integration coefficient, and trustworthiness causes the increase of the probability that an enterprise selects to participate collaborative innovation in supply chain, and the increase of data sharing cost, security risk coefficient, and free rider income causes the decrease of the probability that an enterprise selects to participate collaborative innovation in supply chain; meanwhile, the increase of all the coefficients makes the velocity with which decision-making approaches to the direction toward decision higher and higher, and when the core enterprises participate the game, they can drive the common enterprises make decision more rapidly; and for the probability that an enterprise selects to participate collaborative innovation in supply chain, data sharing profit coefficient, data sharing cost coefficient, security risk coefficient, and free rider income have threshold values. These conclusions play active roles in leading enterprises to attach importance to digitization construction and actively participate collaborative innovation in supply chain.