Authors: Bernard Cova; Fabiana Ferreira; Robert Spencer and João Proença
Research background and its relevance for past and/or future work – Recent approaches in industrial marketing have emphasized the need to go beyond the metaphor of the dyad when considering the management of inter-firm relationships. Triads have been both defined as the fundamental building blocks of a network (Choi & Wu, 2009) and as the key unit of analysis of business exchanges (Vedel, Geersbro & Ritter, 2012). Recent researches propose that dyadic approaches be discarded in favor of triadic approaches because the former ignore the complexity of business networks (Andersson-Cederholm and Gyimóthy, 2010). Previous authors have taken the leap from dyad to triad as a unit of conceptual analysis, with little or no consideration of the link between the two (Andersson-Cederholm & Gyimóthy, 2010: Van der Valk & Van Iwaarden, 2011). As business solutions can be understood, in itself, a discourse on the market and its evolution, or as a market scripting (Storbacka and Nenonen, 2011), this conceptual shift from dyad to triad is worth a second look in solution business (Wystra, 2015, Cova and Spencer, 2012: Storbacka and Nenonen, 2011, Dubois, 2009). Purpose- In order to investigate this phenomenon, the purpose of the paper is to understand the dynamics of dyad-triad interplay of firms in solution business context. Methods – A qualitative and exploratory research process is adopted, mixing a multiple case study and a single case study approach: a total of seven triads in aerospace industry are analyzed. The dynamics at play are not those of a dyad or a triad taken individually, but rather those between dyads and triads, taken from the perspective of a solution business integrated approach and that form what we name here a ‘solution triad set’. Main contribution of the paper – By introducing the notion of a ‘solution triad set’, the paper contributes to the gap between dyads and triads in literature. It draws attention to the dynamics of relationships between dyads and triads as a way to the understanding of business solutions, as related to longer-term and broader-scope market dynamics. By presenting a typology of business triads in a solution context, the paper discuss the idea that triad and dyad analysis in conjunction, in fact, would seem to offer a better understanding of business solutions as a market scripting.
Journal: n.a. (n.a. – n.a.)
Web Address: n.a.
Publish Year: 2016
Conference: Poznan, Poland (2016)