Purpose

The purpose of this article is to describe and analyze how strategic work between a buyer and a seller can be improved and deepened using strategy workshops linked to the framework of strategy as practice.

Design/methodology/approach

Building upon Whittington’s early work strategy as practice has emerged as an important theoretical field aiming at answering questions on who develops strategy, what they focus on and with which help and how they do (Whittington, 1996). A significant part of this field is strategy workshops. Several scholars have concluded that more research on workshops is needed but see clear evidence of successfully managed workshops as being an important part of the strategic work in the involved organizations (e.g. Hodgkinson, Whittington, Johnson & Schwarz, 2006). It has also been noted that there is a need for more research with plurality in terms of level of analysis, plurality of actors, plurality of dependent variables and as well as plurality of theories (Johnson, Langley, Melin, & Whittington, 2007). The research is based upon the study of three strategic workshops held between a seller and two buying organizations. The research also include a pre-study with interviews as well as follow-up interviews.

Findings

The paper illustrates that within a buyer-seller relationship a lot of strategic discussion can take place and there is indeed important practitioners (Jarzabkovski & Spee, 2009) to be found also among external parties, such as suppliers. Contrary to the claims of Hodgkinson et al, (2006) we see the in this case involvement of both external stakeholders as well as internal stakeholder representing a variety of functions and level as a success factor in the workshop thus making a contribution to the strategy as practice field as well as to supplier development.

Research limitations/implications

The research is based upon a case from the nuclear industry which in some aspects is a very rigours industry and also is highly regulated.

Practical implications

The case studied here clearly illustrate that strategy workshops is a well-functioning tool for strategic discussions and supplier development. The strategy workshops need to include both participators from the buying firm as well as from the selling firms since the success of any strategic decisions will rely upon the actions from both parties. Social implications The research presented highlights the importance of new ways of cooperation between buyers and sellers also on the in the top management levels and is therefore also of interest to different trade and industry organizations working with help and advice to their members.

Original/value

In the article the strategy of practice field is linked to the purchasing and supply management field adding to both knowledge about strategy workshops and supplier development. The case is from a very interesting sector, namely the nuclear industry.

Intercultural Negotiations

It is impossible to think about a world without negotiations, and in fact most of us negotiate several times a day. But does that imply that all of us are skilled negotiators? Probably not but negotiation skills can be trained and developed (e.g. Thompson, 2002).

Not all negotiations are hard but negotiations in business often entail complex situations that involve people at different levels, from different companies’ etc. making negotiations a complex activity (Raiffa, 2002). A further challenge is presented when the counterparts not only represent different companies but also different countries and cultures (Liu, Friedman, Barry, Gelfand, Zhang, 2012; Francis, 1991) which highlights the importance of intercultural negotiations which also is the title of the key-note. 

The keynote firstly address two major negotiation types namely, distributive negotiations and integrative negotiations (Raiffa, 2002) as well as explaining the BATNA concept (Fisher & Ury, 1981).

Secondly, some challenges in intercultural negotiations is presented and discussed (Francis, 1991; Liu et al, 2012; Thompson, 2012) as well as being analyzed using the two main negation types presented.

The nuclear industry is an interesting industry often debated in media. In that industry as in many others outsourcing has become a natural part, even though operating in a highly regulated environment. Examining the area of services purchasing there are several advice on how to proceed such as developing service level agreements that can be used for competitive bidding. Service level agreements, however are challenging to develop and hard to measure. Looking at interaction between  a global service firm (the supplier) and two Nuclear power plants (the customers) we get insights in these challenges. Taking a starting point in different suggestions on how to purchase services and how services can be classified it is concluded that a model that both allows buyer seller interaction as well detailed service level agreements are needed for long term successful purchasing of services in the nuclear industry. The service level agreement need to consider two types of risks to work, namely risk associated with the service itself and risk associated with the context in which the service is produced.

Buyer seller interaction has been recognized as a potential area to generate both innovations and quality improvements (Axelsson et al, 2005) and one way to gain such advantages is to engage in supplier development activities (Krause, 1999; Krause & Scanell, 2002). Drawing upon interaction theory value can be created through activity links (e.g. JIT, concurrent engineering etc.), resource ties (i.e. optimal use of other parties resources), and actor bonds (i.e. the social bonds between actors) (Håkansson, 1982; Håkansson & Snehota, 1995) the potential to increase the value for both involved parties in a buyer seller relationship is evident. Studies of supplier development has often been focused on the manufacturing industry, this case investigates buyer seller interaction in the service industry (Wynstra et al, 2006). Further supplier development has focused on the why and what questions (Krause, 1999; Larsson, 2005), the how questions however, has not been addressed in the same extent.

A theoretical field focusing a lot on the how question is strategy as practice (Jarzabkovski & Spee, 2009). When examining how actors create strategy in other research workshops has been proven to be a valuable tool for strategy development processes (Hodgkinson, Whittington, Johnson & Schwarz, 2005). In the case studied here a service provider has invited their customer to a series of three workshops aiming at increasing interaction in the relationship to get a better understanding of each other, create learning and to ultimately increase innovation in the relationship.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze how workshops can be used as a tool for supplier development activities aiming at increasing development in the buyer seller relationship.

Purchasing is a function that has developed form a more clerical function to a function of strategic importance over the last 20 years. As a result of this development we have observed that many fi rms engage in supplier development activities as a part of their purchasing strategy.

This thesis consists of four different essays describing various aspects of supplier development and an essay that summarise and connects the four essays as well as giving a broad introduction to the fi eld of research.

Small and medium sized firms are of special interest when studying supplier or supply chain since they are important links in their supply chains but have fewer resources and therefore limited possibilities to develop by themselves. In the thesis three of the essays describe different ways in which this can be conducted.

Positive benefits from supplier and supply chain development reported in the thesis are lower costs, shorter lead times, increased competence and an overall improved competitiveness.

This paper explores and analyses supplier development in a supply chain ranging from an OEM supplier to the system suppliers (first tier), and onwards to the next level of tiered suppliers. The paper explores how Tetra Pak work with supplier development in an integrated manner involving a number of SMEs. The study is based on interviews with key actors, a survey study of involved firms as well as secondary data. The research has been funded by the KK-foundation and the Platform project at the Jönköping University

Competence development is an important feature of supplier development projects. To make knowledge about new practices known and adopted by 3^rd, 4- and 5^th tier suppliers, normally SMEs, have however shown to be difficult. This is not only a problem of adequate concepts and resources, but also of didactics, on pedagogical methods. The paper describes and analyses one innovative methodology to spread knowledge and raise competence, namely the KrAft-program. We have followed one supplier development project that was run according to this concept, the Norrgavel case. To illustrate the methodology a case study of the KrAft-group Norrgavel has been carried out. It  is a supplier development project.