Concepts

At the conceptual level, this work contributes to a better understanding of value creation and interfirm relationships in addition to bridging these two research areas.

Value creation: proposing a new definition – This research addresses the definitional and operational issues associated with the study of value creation by proposing a new definition for value and value creation: ‘Value is a measure of importance as perceived by stakeholders, while value creation is a process that generates and returns valued assets to stakeholders’ (Sections 3.1.2. and 4.2.1.). By focusing on the notions of ‘importance’ and

‘stakeholders’, this definition encompasses many of the traditionally explored avenues:

‘value attributes’ (e.g., product quality and price); ‘value recipients’ (e.g., products, services, and differences between what is given and what is received); ‘value processes’

(e.g., generation, perception, capture, and sharing); and ‘value moments’ (e.g., prior, during, and after sell/purchase; product and customer cycle life). In addition, this definition facilitates the measurement of value perceptions since ‘What is important for you?’ is an easy and accessible question to answer for most individuals. Furthermore, this definition allows to simultaneously measuring perceptions from all of the parties involved in the exchange process (e.g., customers and suppliers as performed in the case study). Thus, this definition provides theoretical and empirical support for the emergent consensus among

researchers that any study on value should be precisely contextualized and that both value producers and value receivers should be taken into account (Section 3.1.2.). Finally, this research proposes the concept of value creation as a better success indicator for business exchange than established metrics (e.g., financial performance, market share, customer satisfaction, and innovation) which often take into account the interests of only one type of stakeholder and remain within disciplinary boundaries. The current research therefore represents an important contribution to efforts undertaken in the field of strategic management for evaluating business development on ever more relevant indicators.

Interfirm relationships: proposing a theoretical model and developing the new concept of

‘exchange orientation’ – This research contributes to a better understanding of interfirm relationships. It individually studies many of the constructs forming the nomological network of business relationships (e.g., commitment, cooperation, trust, interdependence, and time orientation) and integrates these constructs into a theoretical model, thus unifying a fragmented literature (Sections 4.2. and 5.2.). This model provides a clearer vision of relationships, first by distinguishing and then by linking together four key elements: the nature of relationships, their governance, their outcomes, and their business environment.

The case study investigates the linkages between these key elements as elaborated in several propositions (Section 4.3.). The findings show full support for some of these linkages and partial support of others (see Section 6.2.). To further extend the study of business relationships, a new concept is put forth: exchange orientation (EO). This concept is also viewed as ‘marketing orientation’ from the supplier perspective or as ‘procurement orientation’ from the customer perspective. It is developed from characterizing the nature and governance of customer-supplier relationships along the transactional/relational continuum (Table 6). Building on the notion that exchange varies along this continuum instead of being positioned in one orientation or the other, this study helps in reconciling two diverging streams in marketing research (transaction marketing and relationship marketing). This research is therefore a step toward filling the current research gaps related to hybrid orientations within supply chains and within organizations. Finally, the concept of EO helps identify antecedents to value creation within interfirm relationships.

Bridging value creation and interfirm relationships: extending the emergent concepts of

‘value-creating network’ and ‘relationship value’ – This research differs from previous attempts to offer a conceptual integration of the various aspects of interfirm relationships by focusing on value creation. In addition, this study develops knowledge on business relationships as a means of value creation at the rarely studied level of the

‘interorganizational dyad in a network context’ (Section 4.4.). Studying relationships at this level of analysis contributes to a better understanding of value-creating networks (Sections 2.2.4. and 2.5.). This research extends the concept of relationship value (RV) by positioning it into the broader nomological network of business relationships and thus confirms the role of value as a key relationship element as suggested by Ulaga and Eggert (2006). This research also increases the explanatory power of the RV model developed by Ulaga and Eggert (2005, 2006) by integrating additional indicators to measure value dimensions (e.g., ability to offer technical advice and ease of decision making process) and additional dimensions to the overall model (i.e., transaction costs and psychological costs) (Figure 10 and Table 10). Overall, findings not only reveal that business relationships are a major source of value creation but also establish linkages between value creation in relationships and competitiveness. The research broadens RV conceptualization to compare suppliers’ value offerings with their competitors and detect sources of advantage (Figure 12).

6.3.2. Methods

At the methodological level, this work contributes to expanding the use of qualitative approaches to a research field which traditionally favors quantitative methods.

Additionally, this study extends and develops measurement techniques for relationship value and exchange orientation.

Using qualitative approaches to study the supply chain for wood products – This research advances the use of qualitative approaches in the supply chain of wood products. First, it relies on a seldom employed technique combining qualitative and quantitative data collection to better explain ‘interfirm relationships as a means of value creation’. Second, this research adds to the few qualitative studies conducted in the context of wood products by providing additional illustration of their advantages (e.g., answering both exploratory and explanatory questions). This is a significant contribution in an industrial and scientific setting (the supply chain for wood products and wood sciences, respectively) which traditionally favors quantitative methods. Some characteristics of the methodology could be regarded as limitations by part of the targeted audience in this research. For instance, the samples of sellers and buyers of structural wood products selected for this study (both in the exploratory phase and in the case study) do not statistically represent the population of manufacturing or purchasing companies in the supply chain. However, the purpose of qualitative analyses is not to be representative but to favor a thorough understanding of the phenomenon under scrutiny. Another limitation of the research is that it focused on structural wood products and findings may not reflect the supply chains of other industrial or services sectors. Notwithstanding, the methods developed to study business relationships and measure RV and EO can easily be adapted to other business contexts.

Extending relationship value (RV) – From a methodological perspective, this study extends the construct of RV over two aspects: its measurement and its application. First, this research extends the measurement of RV by adapting an initial validation of the construct based on quantitative techniques (Ulaga and Eggert 2005, 2006b) to a qualitative approach.

This adaptation has required the introduction of two additional steps in the measurement of RV: assessing the relative importance of dimensions forming the construct and assessing cost reductions in addition to costs incurred in relationships (Annex 2). These methodological steps facilitate data collection and increase the content validity of the construct thus resulting in a more accurate understanding of RV. Second, this research extends the application of RV by adapting the measure developed by Ulaga and Eggert for routinely purchased components in a multi-industry context to the purchase of structural wood products in the supply chain for residential construction. The application of RV is also extended from Ulaga and Eggert’s work which compares the performance of a key-supplier with that of the best alternative from the sole customer perspective. Instead, the methods developed in this study compare value offerings of suppliers (key-supplier, average/regular supplier, and occasional supplier) with that of their competitors, from both sides of the buyer-seller dyad. Finally, this research proposes an innovative methodology to evaluate business relationships at the dyad level in a network context, contrasting with previous work on business relationships which focused on one type of trade actor only. It develops procedures and tools (Annex 2) to measure RV from the perspectives of interconnected value ‘producers’ and ‘receivers’ in a complex supply chain.

Developing a measure for exchange orientation (EO) – This research operationalizes EO into a multidimensional construct. Each of the ten dimensions forming this construct is assessed by three to six variables that were empirically tested in previous research (Annex 2). Findings show that the survey instruments developed in this study enable the collection of comprehensive data about EO from case study participants. The measure proposed is a building block for collapsing the different underlying constructs into a unidimensional measure of EO.