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This study aims to examine what types of interfirm linkages a firm enters in relation to its manufacturing strategy. The authors further aim to determine whether heterogeneous resources have different moderating effects on the relationship between a firm’s manufacturing strategy and interfirm linkages.

The sample consists of survey and archival data on 80 publicly listed electronics firms from the semiconductor and optoelectronics industries in Taiwan. Because the dependent variable, interfirm linkage, is a binary term, the authors apply logistic regression in our study.

This paper provides empirical insight into how a firm’s manufacturing strategy affects its probability to engage in specific types of interfirm linkages. The authors find that when a firm pursues an efficiency (flexibility) strategy, it will tend to engage in marketing (technical) interfirm linkages. In addition, absorbed slack strengthens the fit between manufacturing strategy and interfirm linkage type more than unabsorbed slack does.

Because the sample is drawn from the Taiwanese semiconductor and optoelectronic industries, the authors encourage scholars to examine the generalizability of the findings. Future studies can furthermore adopt in-depth interviews to facilitate a better understanding of decision-makers’ considerations when entering interfirm linkages.

This study extends resource dependence theory across a firm’s boundary and applies the resource-based view to resource heterogeneity. The findings advance the understanding of the relationships between strategic orientation, slack resources and interfirm linkage choices. The authors show that it is important that firms consider strategic fit when they create linkages outside their existing boundaries.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Companies that form associations with other firms can become better positioned to achieve sustained competitive advantage. Adopting a clearly defined manufacturing strategy should help ascertain what type of interfirm linkage to pursue. Alignment between strategy and linkage can be further strengthened by using appropriate organizational slack resources.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

Although past studies have suggested that business-to-business (B2B) interfirm relationship management contributes to a firm’s omnichannel integration, little research has been undertaken to reveal how that happens. This study aims to draw upon the relational view to propose a research model that associates interfirm information technology (IT) capability and interfirm trust with omnichannel integration through interfirm integration (i.e. authority integration and cooperative integration). Furthermore, this work considers a firm’s channel usage variety as the boundary condition of the interfirm integration’s influence.

The research model was examined using a seemingly unrelated regression of archival data and matched a survey of 324 Chinese omnichannel firms.

Interfirm IT capability positively relates to authority integration, and interfirm trust positively relates to cooperative integration. Authority integration and cooperative integration are both positively associated with omnichannel integration. A high level of channel usage variety strengthens the relationship between cooperative integration and omnichannel integration.

Prior literature has called for research on the factors influencing omnichannel integration within a B2B setting. This study answers this research call by examining interfirm IT capability, interfirm trust and interfirm integration as factors associated with omnichannel integration. This work also examines how channel usage variety regulates the relationship between interfirm integration and omnichannel integration.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the nature of joint action between firms, and to examine how interfirm linkages impact the development of information systems that impact joint action. The research also examines how economic dependence impacts joint action or joint activities between firms. While the importance of interfirm relations has been widely acknowledged, the relationships between buyers and suppliers can vary widely on the amount of joint action they undertake with each other.

Using structural equation modeling, the authors test a model of influences on joint action that incorporates elements of social norms that develop between partners, their economic dependence on each other, and a coordination mechanism of shared information systems.

The findings indicate that joint action is influenced indirectly by some elements of social exchange, and instead is directly impacted by economic dependence and information systems. Social norms, specifically commitment, do impact the development of shared information systems.

This is a single industry study of automotive parts and accessories firms. Care should be taken in generalizing these findings to firms in similar settings – relatively small suppliers to larger assemblers or manufacturers.

The value of this research is to help understand the elements of interfirm relations, their impact on information systems, the overall impact of these on joint action or joint activities between firms, and the role of economic dependence.

Prior research on interfirm collaborations has demonstrated that trust and contract are two central governance mechanisms that influence a firm’s knowledge sharing decision and the subsequent effect on performance. However, we know little about how effective these mechanisms are in different market conditions and levels of organizational innovativeness. This study aims to advance the literature on interfirm knowledge sharing by exploring these contingencies and by providing an alternative explanation of the contradictory effects of knowledge sharing on firm performance.

The authors collected 156 firms’ relationships with their suppliers in two batches from 300 firms in the 2017 list of Statistics in the Zhejiang province in China. The authors used unstructured interviews and formal questionnaires to collect data from these firms.

Market turbulence served as a boundary condition for the effect of interfirm trust and formal contracts on knowledge sharing. Both interfirm trust and formal contracts, as governance mechanisms, are effective in raising interfirm knowledge sharing only when the firms operate in high turbulent markets. On the contrary, knowledge sharing negatively affected firm performance when firms exhibit low organizational innovativeness. Moreover, a three-way interaction among market turbulence, organizational innovativeness and knowledge sharing revealed that when market turbulence and organizational innovativeness were both low, interfirm knowledge sharing was detrimental to firm performance.

Based on the results, this study recommends managers consider external (market turbulence) and internal (organizational innovativeness) when firms decide to share knowledge and benefit from such activities.

This study extends prior research on the determinant of knowledge sharing and clarifies the inconsistent findings of knowledge sharing on firm performance. Thus, strategic organizational leaders need to pay attention to when they need to share information with suppliers to best benefit from those collaborations.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate vertical interfirm relationships with direct competitors – also referred to as vertical “coopetition” – in entrepreneurial firms. Specifically, this study explores the reasons for why entrepreneurial firms engage in vertical coopetition and how they manage this particular type of interfirm relationship. The paper also shed light on the causes for termination of such delicate relational arrangements.

The research design is exploratory. The paper analyze data collected by a survey that was specifically designed for this study. Based on the findings, the paper developed theoretical propositions specifying the conditions under which entrepreneurial firms engage in coopetition, how it is managed, and how it can be sustained.

The findings show that coopetition is a ubiquitous phenomenon for entrepreneurial firms, and mainly arises out of a deliberate strategy. In contrast to large firms, entrepreneurial firms tend to manage coopetitive relationships in a central manner. Termination was common among firms facing high risk or when alternative strategies emerged.

This study provides a fundamental theoretical and evidence-based discussion of vertical coopetition in young firms. By doing so, the authors advance theory development, offer important insights for entrepreneurs seeking to benefit from intercompetitor linkages, and highlight promising avenues for future research.

The paper makes several important contributions to the coopetition literature. The paper develop a definition of vertical coopetition and study the unique aspects associated with it. In contrast to most previous research in this area, the paper focus on entrepreneurial firms. The evidence-based analysis contributes to a better understanding of the reasons for entrepreneurial firms entering and terminating coopetitive arrangements as well as how they manage these types of collaborations. The paper develops theoretical propositions and generate novel insights into the dynamics and issues that arise with coopetition in entrepreneurial firms.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that affect the stability of interfirm trading ties in China's transitional economy. In particular, the paper explores whether the propensity to engage in repeat transactions with past partners is attributable to rational choice based on expectations for the benefits of social capital, or an outcome of institutional pressure that binds firms sharing similar positions within the institutional structure bequeathed from China's socialist past.

This study utilizes data on the actual trading ties between 32 final vehicle assemblers and 477 parts and components suppliers in the auto industry during the period from 1998 to 2005. Using logistic regression analysis, the study highlights the factors that lead to the greater likelihood of repeat transactions between a particular pair of assemblers and suppliers.

The result of the analysis suggests that while rational motives, such as transaction cost economization, do account for the propensity to engage in repeat transactions with past partners, it also confirms the persistence of a strong tendency to continue transacting with firms sharing similar institutional lineage, regardless of the benefits that could be accrued from such durable networks.

This study adds to the existing literature on social networks in China by highlighting the path‐dependency and institutional legacy in the formation of business networks during China's transition towards a market economy.

Markets-as-networks (MAN) theorists contend, at least tacitly, the significance of business relationships to the firm – that is, business relationships contribute somewhat to corporate survival or growth. One does not deny the existence of significant business relationships but sustain, in contrast to the consensus within the MAN theory, that relationship significance should not be a self-evident assumption. For significance cannot be a taken-for-granted property of each and every one of the firm's business relationships. The authors adopt explicitly a critical realist meta-theoretical position in this conceptual paper and claim that relationship significance is an event of the business world, whose causes remain yet largely unidentified. Where the powers and liabilities of business relationships (i.e., relationship functions and dysfunctions) are put to work, inevitably under certain contingencies (namely the surrounding networks and markets), relationship effects ensue for the firm (often benefits in excess of sacrifices, i.e., relationship value) and as a consequence relationship significance is likely to be brought about. In addition, relationship significance can result from the dual impact that business relationships may have on the structure and powers and liabilities of the firm, that is, on corporate nature and scope, respectively.

This study investigates the influence of inter-firm linkages between small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and large firms on the relationship between an SME's creditworthiness and its access to finance.

Survey questionnaire was distributed to 456 SMEs in the manufacturing sector in the Selangor and Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur regions and a total of 145 useable responses were gathered. Investigation into the possible differences in the effect of creditworthiness – and its dimensions – on access to finance for SMEs with and without linkages are examined using Partial Least Squares-Multi Group Analysis (PLS-MGA).

It is found that the relationship between creditworthiness and access to finance is significant for both SMEs with and without links to large firms. However, no significant difference is found in the effect of creditworthiness on access to finance for both types of SME. Further analysis on the five different dimensions of creditworthiness shows statistically significant differences between SMEs with links and those without for the dimensions of collateral and condition. This implies that alliances formed between SMEs and large firms do not have much of an influence on the overall creditworthiness but do influence the collateral and condition of the SME.

This study contributes to the understanding of the effects of interfirm linkages on SME creditworthiness and access to finance. To the authors' knowledge no such study has been conducted on links between SMEs and large firms, especially in a developing country such as Malaysia.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate alliance partner diversity (APD) as a driving force that potentially enhances firms’ innovation generation (IG) in interfirm open alliance contexts. The authors propose that APD enhances IG but that the effects depend on both alliance network position and the double-edged external knowledge search strategy. Building on the knowledge-based view and social capital theory, the authors formally model how external knowledge search strategies can lead to productive or destructive acquisitions of external knowledge in interfirm open alliance networks. The authors theorize that when an individual firm adopts a central position in a complex interfirm open alliance network, its propensity toward beneficial IG depends on its knowledge search strategy (i.e. its breadth and depth) due to the joint influence of network position and knowledge search strategy on innovation.

Using an original large-scale survey of high-tech firms, this study shows that the relationship between partner diversity and IG is contingent on a firm’s network position and knowledge search strategy. The authors also offer an original analysis of how knowledge search strategy (i.e. its breadth and depth) in network centrality (NC) affects the efficacy of knowledge acquisition in interfirm open alliance networks. Empirically, the authors provide an original contribution to the open innovation literature by integrating social capital and knowledge-based theory to rigorously measure firm IG.

Overall, our findings suggest that the knowledge search strategy imparts a double-edged effect that may promote or interfere with external knowledge in IG in the context of the diversity of alliance partners.

The work has important limitations, such as its analysis of a single industry in the empirical models. Therefore, further studies should consider multiple industries that may provide useful insights into innovation decisions.

External knowledge search is valuable, particularly in the high-tech industry, as external knowledge acquisition generates innovation output. This study serves to raise managers’ awareness of various approaches to external knowledge searches and highlights the importance of network position in knowledge acquisition from interfirm open alliance collaborations.

This paper is the first to investigate the double-edged effect of knowledge search on interfirm open alliance networks. It also contributes to the theoretical and practical literature on interfirm open alliance networks by reflecting on external knowledge search and underlying network centrality and APD factors.