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This paper aims to investigate the concept of inter‐organisational supplier development programs and to stress the importance of considering suppliers' interest and motivation when implementing development initiatives.

This paper's theoretical framework is based on an in‐depth literature review that analyses how extant supplier development literature considers an inter‐organisational approach. A single case study of eight inter‐organisational relationships is also included.

The literature review reveals a lack of focus on inter‐organisational approaches to supplier development, even though the literature mentions it as a missing theme. Customer attractiveness is presented as one approach that takes supplier view and motivation into consideration. This idea is supported by the case study, which indicates that supplier performance is influenced by perceived customer attractiveness.

This paper is based on only a single case study and does not provide the basis for statistical generalisation. A theory on customer attractiveness is under development, and the analysis presented here is based on the theoretical findings.

Because suppliers can have their own strategic agendas, such as prioritising developments with the most attractive customers, buyers should consider suppliers' perspectives and motivations when analysing and implementing supplier development programs.

This paper is among the first to focus on the importance of viewing both parties' interest in a buyer‐supplier relationship when implementing supplier development initiatives. The concept of customer attractiveness as an inter‐organisational approach represents a valuable addition to supplier development literature.

The purpose of this paper is to present an approach to identify and rank the criteria used for the supplier development using interpretative structural modeling (ISM).

The paper develops a framework to analyze the interactions among the criteria such as competitive pressure, evaluation and certification system, incentives, supplier development programs, inter‐organizational communication, buyer‐supplier relationship, supplier commitment, supplier performance, asset specificity, joint action, trust, long‐term strategic goals, top management support, purchasing performance, and supplier strategic objective for the supplier development using ISM. The developed framework is illustrated using a case study taken in an automobile firm.

The paper contributes to research in supply chain management (SCM) and particularly in supplier development. Research in the area of SCM has intensified in recent years for a number of reasons. Managers have now realized that actions taken by one member of the chain can influence the responsiveness, efficiency and profitability of the complete supply chain. Firms are increasingly thinking in terms of competing as part of a supply chain against other supply chains, rather than as a single firm against other individual firms.

Since the proposed framework is applied for only a single company, further studies can be done using the same framework for several companies in India. This will provide a better understanding of how the variables that influence supplier development are affected in different types of industry.

Managers can use the proposed framework to develop better relationships with suppliers and to create management responses that influence and improve their relationships with them.

This paper uses 15 criteria to propose a framework for the supplier development and also finds the interactions between the criteria which influence the most and the least to improve the relationship with the suppliers.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the activities that nascent firms undertake to improve customer attractiveness and gain collaborative commitment from strategic suppliers.

Data from a grounded theory study consisting of 26 participants from 15 firms and a review of extant literature were used to develop a theoretical model that explains how a nascent firm increases its customer attractiveness to elicit commitment and collaboration from strategic suppliers.

The authors find that social capital, born of close social ties and social history, enhances the effectiveness of a nascent firm's relationship-building practices. This counteracts a supplier's collaborative risk and consequently increases the nascent firm's customer attractiveness, thus enabling it to obtain strategic supplier collaborative commitment.

This research helps managers by providing direction on what practices nascent firms pursue to gain strategic supplier resources and collaboration. Given the reality of resource constraints in nascent firms, it is suggested that this insight is essential to obtaining crucial external resources needed to survive and grow.

Extant research on buyer–supplier collaboration is mostly confined to the context of mature firms and does not account for the unique inter-organizational relational challenges faced by nascent firms. This research uncovers the idiosyncrasies of supplier management in nascent firms, and elucidates on the actions that nascent firm managers take to gain supplier collaborative commitment.

This paper aims to examine how collaborative supplier development (SD) activities, supplier capabilities and buyer–supplier relationship interrelate in technology-based, luxury product business contexts characterized by small volumes, difficult targets and resource constraints relative to those targets.

Using inductive case research method, the authors investigate multiple embedded cases involving six dyadic buyer–supplier relationships of two luxury product manufacturers in the motorcycle and automotive industries. Each dyad represents an important sub-system for which the buying firm committed significant SD efforts to help the supplier successfully achieve difficult targets.

The analysis reveals how paradoxical tensions might emerge as the firms engage in successful SD activities, which could lead to decreasing relationship commitment ultimately resulting in the termination of the relationship. The authors utilize the “value co-creation and value capture” paradox framework to understand the SD and relationship dynamic and characterize it as developing-leveraging paradox to explain its dualities, i.e. commitment-based SD efforts (increasing value co-creation), and unilateral leveraging of the newly acquired capabilities (increasing value capture) by both the buyer and the supplier. Overemphasis on value capture by one of the exchange partners spurs a detrimental vicious cycle leading to the decline of the relationship.

The study explains the paradoxical dynamics that may emerge in SD activities of innovative, technologically complex, luxury product firms. The findings contribute to the SD literature by highlighting how learnings from SD activities could contribute to the dark sides of buyer–supplier relationship. The technologically complex, luxury product contextual characteristics of the study may limit the generalizability of the study findings.

The study provides novel insights into the emergence and management of paradoxes in buyer–supplier relationships, in terms of virtuous and vicious dynamics of developing-leveraging.

The literature on supplier development (SD) is mostly fragmented, and very little research offers insights on the interrelations of the critical elements of SD. This research aims to evaluate the significance of SD and reconceptualise it by identifying and linking the key constructs and items of SD.

A structured literature review of SD literature was performed, and it was followed by conducting a contingency analysis of defined constructs and the items of SD. Applying a literature review and contingency analysis allows assessing the degree to which core constructs and their operational items are addressed in the SD literature.

Our findings show that a high degree of interrelations exists among enablers, relationships and supplier development strategies (SDS), of which, only indirect SDS drives the performance outcomes. However, interrelations between the individual items of the main categories of SD remain unexplored.

The proposed revised framework reveals significant research gaps in SD and calls for a thorough examination of the topic.

The key contribution of the paper is reconceptualising SD and contributing to the theoretical development of SD.

The aim of this paper is to propose a benchmarking model of supplier development (SD) for an Indian gear manufacturing company for its successful adoption and improvement in a continuous basis.

Thirteen SD critical success factors (CSFs) are identified and classified into four categories through extensive literature review and discussion held with managers/senior engineers in different Indian manufacturing companies. The four categories are primary CSFs related to supplier, secondary CSFs related to supplier, CSFs related to manufacturer and CSFs related to both manufacturer and supplier. The interpretative structural modeling (ISM) approach is applied to the Indian gear manufacturing company for developing and analyzing structural framework of CSFs to propose a benchmarking model for SD.

It is concluded that SD adoption should be carried out in four phases sequentially for the Indian gear manufacturing company. The first, second, third and fourth phase should sequentially focus on primary CSFs related to supplier; secondary CSFs related to supplier; CSFs related to manufacturer; and CSFs related to both manufacturer and supplier, respectively. The proposed benchmarking model has four phases (i.e. plan, analyze, implement and measure) and bifurcated into 12 steps to enhance the performance of CSFs.

This paper provides a useful benchmarking model for successful adoption of SD in manufacturing organizations.

This is one of the few studies to develop the relationship of CSFs for SD in general and its application to an Indian gear manufacturing company in particular. A benchmarking model for SD is also proposed having five phases and 12 steps. The findings of the proposed structural framework and benchmarking model for the Indian gear manufacturing company are discussed in detail and will serve as a guideline for successful adoption of SD in manufacturing environment.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether two different participation strategies (i.e. deep participation and broad participation) in a supplier’s product development process will result in different levels of customer-perceived value. In addition, this paper examines the moderating effects of customer risk-aversion and technology turbulence on the relationship between customer participation depth/breadth and customer-perceived value.

A theory-based model is developed and tested using data collected from 196 business-to-business firms. A multiple-regression approach was used to test the hypotheses.

Drawing on the transaction cost theory, the results reveal that while deep participation is likely to result in increased customer-perceived value, broad participation may hurt the relationship performance by reducing customer-perceived value. Moreover, the findings suggest that these effects are contingent on at least two contextual factors: how risk-averse the customer is and how turbulent the technological environment is.

This study is among the first to disaggregate the customer participation process into two different strategies, namely, deep participation and broad participation. It also extends the current literature by providing more insights about the dynamics involved in the customer participation process.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a green supplier development (GSD) process model and validate the model with a case study in Indian automobile industry.

A literature survey of peer-reviewed journal articles, survey reports and paradigmatic books with managerial impact is done for the research. The process of GSD is modeled using stage-gate approach and KPIV and KPOV of the process are determined. The process model is implemented in an Indian automobile components manufacturing industry for validation.

The industry implemented the model with ten suppliers and was able to successfully convert seven of them into Green suppliers. Remaining three suppliers were asked to repeat the process again or terminate the contracts. Model implementation took around three years starting from planning of resources and finances to actual development of suppliers.

The model implementation was done with a small automobile industry and hence the validation and implications may be generalized by taking the case study further in different industries. It would be beneficial to test the model with case studies of large-scale industries.

The process model for implementing GSD activities will help managers in taking complex investment decisions. The stages and process inputs and outputs are clearly defined which helps the managers to successfully develop the suppliers.

This paper puts forward the process model that should be implemented for the successful development of green suppliers. It might represent new opportunities for rigorous and relevant research in the area of green supply chain.

The purpose of this paper is to assist a manufacturer for determining the principal supplier development impediments (SDIs) that are affecting the supplier development programs (SDPs) and yield a basis for drawing the appropriate mitigation strategies.

The proposed approach starts with the application of fuzzy analytic hierarchy process and Pareto analysis to obtain the principal SDIs. Subsequently, the interpretive structural modeling and Fuzzy-Matrice d’Impacts Croisés-Multiplication Appliquée à un Classement analysis are applied on the principal SDIs to explore the root causes inducing ineffectiveness in the SDPs.

The outcomes of the proposed approach were demonstrated through a case study conducted in an Indian automotive components manufacturing company. The principal SDIs were identified, ranked, classified and structurally related for the said case company’s manufacturing environment. It was found that the lack of competent workforce, level of nascent relationship between manufacturer and suppliers and poor devolution of authority were the main SDIs that the case company has to primarily focus to make its SDPs effective.

Although the study was conducted in a practical case situation, the obtained results are not indiscriminate to the other case situations. However, the proposed approach can be applied for analyzing the SDIs in any manufacturing environment once the set of SDIs relevant to that environment are carefully chosen.

The methodology would assist a manufacturer to proactively identify the SDIs that it has to primarily focus and subsequently devise the mitigation strategies for smooth running of its SDPs.

By utilizing the identified SDIs and applying the proposed methodology a manufacturer can find the main SDIs that are making the SDPs ineffective and accordingly fix the hindrances through certain mitigation strategies designed.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how marketing capability, dysfunctional conflict, and relationship value affect relational benefits through the relational proclivity between suppliers and initiators in a group-buying web site.

The initiators selected were those who conducted group buying more than ten times in the group-buying web site. In total, 9,000 invitation e-mails were sent to initiators, of which 389 were returned; the model and hypotheses were tested by using structural equation modeling.

In online group buying, initiators can know about a new product only through the web site; the marketing capability of suppliers and the relationship value of initiators are positively associated with the relational proclivity between suppliers and initiators. And, the results indicate that the dysfunctional conflict of initiators is not positively associated with the relational proclivity between suppliers and initiators. Finally, The relational proclivity between suppliers and initiators is positively associated with the relational benefit between initiators and buyers.

The supplier and the initiator can work together in brainstorming new products; moreover, initiators can assist suppliers by helping them identify buyers’ demands and giving them relevant feedback.

The suppliers’ marketing capability is important for initiators because it can help increase the latter’s ability to catch buyers’ attention. In addition, the initiator and supplier together can think about product innovation and new product designs.

Initiators, as key persons in the group-buying process, serve as a bridge between suppliers and buyers and have a positive impact on group buying. The findings suggest that certain facets of initiators are helpful in explaining the expected product performance of buyers.