Skip Navigation



ICC Advance Access published online on February 3, 2006
Industrial and Corporate Change, doi:10.1093/icc/dtj015
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
15/2/221    most recent
dtj015v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by O’Sullivan, A.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Associazione ICC. All rights reserved

Article

Why tense, unstable, and diverse relations are inherent in co-designing with suppliers: an aerospace case study

Alan O’Sullivan 1 *

1 School of Management, University of Ottawa, PO Box 450, Station A, Ottawa, Canada ON K1N 6N5

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Alan O’Sullivan, E-mail: osullivan{at}gestion.uottawa.ca


  Abstract

Co-design by a firm and its suppliers has become a widely accepted means of developing new products, especially technologically-complex products. Much existing research emphasizes stable and trusting relationships as a "one-best way" for governing these co-design relations. This article questions this view. The article argues that co-design relations are likely to be diverse, unstable, and conflictual due to the inherent nature of the co-design activity. The inherent diversity of co-design relations is explained by the need to organize for distinct coordination needs. Three coordination processes, each directed toward a different coordination need, are derived from the study of a single aerospace co-design project. Interactions between these processes are shown to systematically produce conflict and instability in co-design relations. The main implication of the study is that co-design performance depends on a firm and its suppliers dealing explicitly with these interactions but that there is no "one-best way" of doing so.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.