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

elationship and the people interacting in the partnership something has been created thatcould be called a possibility space. This is a certain slack, a space created by a sharedhistory resulting in trust and commitment, and a positive outlook for the future.Alhough conflict and the effect of conflicts, on the development of the relationship were notthe focus of this study it seemed strikingly clear from the case that conflicts can be apositive force for the relationship. Therefore I would like to devote a few words to thenotion of constructive effect of conflict. Gadde and Snehota (2000) argue that as companiesget more involved with each other they get more interdependent. With greaterinterdependence the possibility of conflicts of interest gets more likely. However, conflictsare not seen only as negative; instead, conflict can be seen as a prerequisite for innovationand creative development. There have been instances in the relationship between the Sellerand the Buyer where the parties have failed to exploit the potential that lies ininterdependence – episodes where the potential for value co-creation was lost for themoment, but can in retrospect be seen as constructive forces in the development of therelationship.When the Buyer took the decision to start building up its own riding crew for serviceand maintenance the Seller lost a considerable part of its business in the US. The incidentillustrates how the chance for value co-creation was lost because the parties could not find away to exploit each other’ s resources effectively. The Seller was not willing to offer whatthe customer wanted, and the Buyer was not willing to accept what the Seller’ s offering.However, in retrospect the riding crew incident has been a force that has pushed the Sellerto develop the offering and can be seen as constructive in a longer perspective.“ Frustration was a big element in the decision in 1998 when the Buyer created theirown riding crew. The conflict was between… it was money that we discussed. Wewanted a certain amount for keeping a person there and this we wanted to include intoa maintenance agreement. (… ) So this is where the conflict came from” . (Interview:Seller 9)Another episode were the constructive force of a failure in the relationship could beseen as a constructive force is when the Buyer chose to install gas turbines, provided by acompetitor, on their ships at the end of the 1990’ s. At this time, although they already had along history of using the Seller diesels, they wanted to try out the new gas turbinetechnology, which at the time was new in the industry and supposed to be moreenvironmentally friendly. Simultaneously the Seller was still developing theirenvironmentally friendly engine and had not yet released its new technology - a technologythat they managed to release only days after they lost the Buyer deal to competing gasturbines.135