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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of a commercial partnership in a project‐type supply chain. The research focuses on the performance of suppliers who develop a partnering mechanism for procurement of complex manufacturing projects. In total, four supply chain metrics are evaluated: project scope change, ratio of actual‐to‐estimated project costs, gross profit margin, and delay in deliverable shipments. Hypotheses are formulated to contrast partnerships and arms‐length relationships for industrial procurement. Statistical results support the conclusion that supplier performances improve under partnership.

Four supply chain metrics were generated through review of literature and in‐depth field study. The authors utilized the supply chain management, project management, and principal‐agent theory literature to develop hypotheses to examine effects of instituting a partnership agreement. A case study approach was employed to collect financial and operational data from 167 projects among a manufacturing supplier and a group of customers that purchase industrial analyzer systems. Statistical techniques were employed for hypothesis testing.

The findings from the authors' empirical work support the prediction in partnership literature that suppliers' operational and financial performances improve after they and manufacturing customers jointly implement partnerships. A supplementary finding also suggests that a manufacturer should develop partnering mechanisms with suppliers to achieve higher performance for both the individual firms and the entire supply chain.

This study, like other “before and after” analyses, encounters limitations on causality. Advanced techniques, e.g. cause‐effect investigation with richer data, are hence necessary to validate the causal relationships between performance metrics and their drivers. This study focuses only on the supplier's side of the supply chain and its partnership in a specific industrial setting. Future research may consider studying the joint performance by supplier‐customer dyads in commercial partnerships with variations of partnering agreements.

Partnerships motivate trading partners to engage in higher level of coordination. Transactional hazards can be reduced and performance may improve under the partnering mechanism. The manufacturer may design the procurement partnership as a collaborative mechanism, thus helping a partnering supplier and itself to obtain increased mutual gains.

The paper provides detailed information of a unique case study of the partnership in a project‐type supply chain, which is relatively new in the literature. Research streams on supply chain management, project management, and principal‐agent theory are integrated to evaluate supplier performance. Empirical results confirm partnership impacts on suppliers' business performance.

To build awareness of an emergent global network of sustainability consortia, the network's Sustainability for the Americas (SFTA) regional cluster, its pilot US‐Brazil Sustainability Consortium (USBSC), its subsequent North American Sustainability, Housing and Community Consortium (NASHCC), the process through which these consortia are emerging and evolving to sustained implementation, planned parallel academic and project funding tracks, and models, tools and techniques used for knowledge transfer. To build awareness of an emergent global sustainability network of multi‐national consortia of universities and non‐institutional partners created to promote sustainability and innovation that connects people, ideas, and resources for a sustainable future; and to invite people interested in multi‐national partnering to enter into a dialogue that can lead to emergence of a multi‐national consortium.

The paper establishes the need for key universities to lead society to a sustainable future. It builds understanding of the role of international partnering, global networking, global media networking, multi‐sector partnering, and sustainability consortia in this leadership. It identifies efforts of the Land Design Institute (LDI) at Ball State University and key partners to facilitate emergence of a global network of sustainability consortia. It reviews the model through which these consortia are emerging and evolving to sustained implementation, including the model's parallel academic and project funding streams. It focuses on the SFTA initiative, including its pilot consortium, as a case‐study in phased emergence and evolution to sustained implementation of these consortia. It presents the consortia model for integrating internal and external knowledge networks; and processes, tools, and techniques used by consortia to lead society to a sustainable future. It reviews the model's nested curricula and international collaborative partnership approach to building sustainability leadership. It builds on experiences to date in this pilot consortium to make suggestions for future consortia.

Paper findings include the relative ease of consortium emergence, seeding, implementation start‐up, and acquiring academic funding; relative difficulty of achieving sustained implementation and project funding; increased awareness of the need for project seeding; and a new understanding of the catalytic benefits of consortia, including increased faculty interaction, development, and productivity including professional papers, journal articles, and proposals for external funding.

The paper fulfills the need for effective models, processes, tools and techniques for international partnering to lead society to a sustainable future.

The European Commission and social partner organisations at EU level encourage the lifelong development of qualifications and competence. This is reflected in many policy reports and reviews. This paper seeks to show the involvement of social partner organisations at the level of EU‐funded competence development projects.

A survey and four case studies were conducted. The population of 60 Leonardo da Vinci projects for a specific sector (agri‐food‐environment) which were implemented during the years 2000‐2003 was selected for the study. For the survey project, documentation was analyzed based on two variables: type of project (to what extent did it require involvement of sectoral social partner organisations); and (the percentage of) involvement (of sectoral social partners who were involved in the partnership). A Spearman correlation test was used to evaluate the relationship between type of project and involvement. For the case studies project documentation was analyzed, and in‐depth semi‐structured interviews were held with project managers.

The Spearman correlation between the type of project and involvement of sectoral social partner organisations was −0.031 (p=0.812). So there was no relationship. The case studies showed that the involvement of sectoral organisations clearly contributes to realising results in the projects.

In the composition of partnerships for competence development projects at EU level, the Commission and project managers should be aware of the importance of including specific sectoral social partners organisations in the partnership.

No study has been conducted yet that empirically tested the relationship between types of projects and the involvement of sectoral social partners in project partnerships. Important discrepancies are shown, of which stakeholders in sector competence development projects should be aware.

Researchers ascertain that the more the activities of new product development (NPD) process are outsourced to partners, the higher the need for integration. The purpose of this paper is to study: the extent to which the amount of information shared with the partners during NPD projects (DC visibility) depends on the degree of outsourcing (DC virtuality), and what are the context variables (product features and business relationship features) that influence this relationship.

This paper provides two sets of quantitative indexes to measure: the relevance of the activities outsourced during the NPD project (i.e. virtuality), in terms of the spread of the outsourced technological knowledge, and in terms of outsourced workload; and the amount of information that a focal company shares with product development partners (i.e. visibility). Seven NPD projects in different companies have been analyzed to investigate visibility, virtuality, and the implications of contingencies.

The cross-case analysis shows that the amount of information shared with the partners during the NPD project varies with the relevance of outsourced activities. In particular, the higher the relevance, the higher the amount of information shared with the partner. Partner location and integration, trust, and ICT support have a role in determining the amount of information shared with each single partner.

This study adopts an original network perspective in that the whole set of partners involved in the NPD process is analyzed. New quantitative indexes of visibility and virtuality of NPD projects are proposed, along with original insights about the impact of context variables. The quantitative indexes also provide a useful managerial tool to evaluate whether a focal company has the possibility to build competitive advantages that exploit unique resources beyond the boundaries of the company.

The scope of this paper covers the development of partnering since 1985. It starts with the early associations that were formed in the petrochemical and process industries between owners and contractors. This period was amply covered by a National Economic Development Office (NEDO) paper (NEDO 1991). Partnering at that stage was principally considered to be a relationship that lasted for a term and not a single contract. However, in the NEDO paper, there was brief mention of two projects being carried out by the US Army Corps of Engineers where the relationship was for individual contracts only. Since then the real growth of partnering in the USA has been on a project by project basis mainly within the public works sector, and this paper argues that this is the type of partnering arrangement that has the greatest potential. The application of partnering to the UK public works sector is affected by the EU public procurement regulations. As partnering on a project specific basis includes an element of price competition, the paper contends that there will be no difficulty in complying with the regulations. Using recent examples of partnering for specific projects in the USA, the paper concludes by making proposals for developing partnering arrangements in the UK public works sector. In the course of this, particular attention is drawn to the key elements of partnering associations in the USA that have contributed largely to their success.

Partner firms to the same joint venture experience sharply different stock price reactions. These differences cannot be explained by mechanical factors related to differences in firm size and ownership share in the project, nor are they attributable to different partner roles in the project or differences in investor anticipation of the announcement. We conclude that the stock price reactions reflect a revaluation of non-project assets that is different for each partner. Additionally, we find evidence indicating that investors infer information about agency problems (in the sense of Jensen, 1986) from the joint venture announcements and subsequently, revalue the whole firm – not just the marginal project being announced. Finally, we find that free cash flow is value-enhancing for one type of partner firm after we control for the extent of agency problems.

Partnerships for sustainability involve the cooperation of several direct and indirect stakeholders. Direct stakeholders are project partners who can include sponsoring brands, manufacturers or retailers; and sponsored sports clubs or social institutions, and indirect stakeholders relate to potential customers, the general public and government agencies. The knowledge and competencies of direct and indirect stakeholders are integrated to ensure common project-based sustainability and individual goals. This integration is essentially facilitated by image transfer and self-identification effects, which strengthen stakeholder commitment and trust, and ultimately contributing to a higher relationship quality. However, sustainability partnerships experience several challenges. The challenges lie in selecting suitable partners; formulating partner requirements; determining partner contributions; evaluating and controlling partner integration and, further, enhancing cooperation and relationship quality among selected partners. To attend to these challenges requires a holistic and systematic process for stakeholder integration in sustainability projects. In this chapter, a process model for stakeholder integration for sustainability projects is developed based on the relevant theoretical and empirical research on relationship and sustainability marketing. In particular, the possibilities of digital integration are taken into account in the process. The model can be used to manage co-creation partnerships for sustainability including the selection, evaluation and controlling of stakeholder relationships to derive strategies and measures to improve relationship quality.

Examines the seventeenth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects discussed include cotton fabric processing, asbestos substitutes, textile adjuncts to cardiovascular surgery, wet textile processes, hand evaluation, nanotechnology, thermoplastic composites, robotic ironing, protective clothing (agricultural and industrial), ecological aspects of fibre properties – to name but a few! There would appear to be no limit to the future potential for textile applications.

The paper seeks to understand the implications of partner opportunism for project relationships.

Based on the theoretical literature, the paper presents a conceptual model considering the perspective of the organization impacted by partner opportunism.

The model proposes that partner opportunism lowers willingness to engage by creating perception of loss. The undesirable impact of opportunism on perceived loss is less if the partner has made high relation-specific investments. Also, the negative impact of perceived loss on willingness to engage is less if the partner is difficult to substitute.

The model can be tested in the context of information technology (IT) relationships because of scope for opportunism in IT project relationships. Data can be collected through experimental vignettes.

The model contributes by investigating novel aspects of governance, behavioral consequences of opportunism and relation-specific investments in project relationships. The paper suggests that organizations can protect themselves against the ill effects of partner opportunism by enabling their stakeholders to invest substantial time and effort in the relationship and fortify relational quality and bonding.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a better understanding of construction procurement within the supply chain management framework and develop a model for information flow. This paper adheres to the supply chain perspective and integration as theoretical point of departure, typically the role that information plays in a complex network such as construction procurement. The co‐ordination within partners and the integration across partners are critical in effective project management. Sharing information is a key component for tight integration to optimize the chain‐wide performance. It helps produce highest quality, low cost and minimum time to service. The tender offer from the procurer or invitation from a supplier triggers the requirement process. In response to the requirements there has to be an opposite flow of information, termed the fulfilment flow in the model described. The requirement information from a procurer is broken down to the project requirements for various partners in the project. Once the supply chain is identified in the postcontracting phase, information regarding specific tasks, materials, and so on, are communicated to the project partners. Information must be managed to bring in value. The quality of information received, the timeliness of the manner it is received and the costeffectiveness in obtaining the information determine the efficiency of a project partner. Another classification considered is that of the changing role of the partner with regard to information handling, i.e., the project partner as a recipient, decision‐maker and communicator of information. All these factors jointly contribute to increasing efficiency in construction procurement. This framework needs to be explored in future research to define subsequent steps in construction supply chain management, as the challenge is to adapt a totally integrated supply chain.