Value Co-Creation in Industrial Buyer-Seller Partnerships ... - Doria

“ But both BR9 and I realize that we have a battle within our own organizations to getpeople to understand what this means… or what we are looking for. We are a little liketwo preachers!” (Interview: Seller 1)Mr SR1&2 was given the possibility to assign the right resources for his team and tocoordinate all activities towards the Buyer, giving him the opportunity to assign a goodworking team. The role of the dedicated technical manager who was assigned to take care ofthe Buyer has proved to be a key success factor in the relationship. Mr SR5 was givenpositive remarks throughout the Buyer organization. His attitude and service mindednesstogether with his technical skills made him a key resource in the partnership.” Well, we have a contact person that we can call anytime. What I like is that if we havea problem on a certain ship, all our superintendents know that ok, let’s call SR5.”(Interview: Buyer 1)I have found the importance of individuals with a strong vision and faith in the partnershipidea as a finding from the study. When I look at it now, in retrospect, it is quite natural thatstrong personal commitment is crucial at the beginning of the relationship, and beforeentering a high-involvement relationship because nobody can know in advance what theoutcome of the involvement in the relationships will be. There is a certain risk in gettingheavily involved with a partner because the pay-off cannot be assessed in advance as valueis created in the process of “ acting out” the relationship.“ We do not know whether the partnership is profitable or not. We have started makingefforts to calculate it, but the revenues and costs are incurred from different directionsand we do not have a system elegant enough to be able to get it by pushing a button.However, what is important and what I think that also Mr BR9 is thinking about is thatone believes in it.” (Interview: Seller 2)6.10.1 Former the Seller employees at the Buyer ameliorating communicationand interactionThe importance of meaningful communication - both the smoothness of the communicationprocess and the quality of what is communicated - is often emphasized in the context ofbusiness interaction between people (Dwyer et al. 1987, Anderson & Narus 1990). Thecommunication between the two companies was said to be fairly good, mainly due to thefact that people interacting in the partnership had good relationships, even at a personallevel. Many of them had a long working history together within the industry and there arepeople currently working within the Buyer organization that had previously worked for the130