Supplier-buyer collaboration in new product development: four case studies involving SMEs

• Autor(a) principal: Moreira, António Carrizo
• Data de Publicação: 2010
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Brazilian Journal of Operations & Production Management (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://bjopm.org.br/bjopm/article/view/BJV2N1_2005_P1

New product development at inter-firm level is clearly an important topic for researchersand managers. Although many papers have reported the importance of collaboration in NPDthe collaboration involving partners with different technology endowments and how manysmall firms have managed to achieve a status of reciprocity have remained unaddressed.In this exploratory study four multinationals and sixteen suppliers were visited andtheir top executives interviewed to determine the key success factors of collaborativeproduct development as perceived by suppliers. Four case studies were prepared in orderto exemplify the supplier’s perceptions to inter-firm product development involvingdifferently endowed firms. The main findings are clear: suppliers and clients have differentperspectives and play different roles due to the bargaining power exercised by the latterand by the fight for reciprocity of the former.