Authors: BForsstrom;
Relationships between buyers and sellers on industrial markets are often long term and catachterized by interaction and involvemement between companies over time. The parties are working together in solving problems and creating new ideas and innovations. One of the core concepts in the study is value. The argument is that value is something relative, and can be understood only at a specific time in a specific context. In the study value is seen as a subjective assessment of the trade off between benefits and sacrifices at a specific time in a specific context. Further value in the context of industrial buyer-seller partnerships is seen as something that is the parties are creating together. The concept of value co-creation is introduced, and by this is meant that value is created jointly through interaction between the parties. This view opposes the traditional view of value creation – where the supplier is seen to be creating something of value that the customer is consuming or destroying.
The study is an empirical case study based on interviews, participant observation and document analysis. The analysis method is qualitative. The object of study is a buyer-seller dyad in the marine industry. The story presented in the thesis is an illustration of how a buyer-seller partnership has developed over a period of 30 years, and how the parties create value, through interaction, over time, in the relationship.
The case analysis supports the initial notion of value being relative and something that is co-created in the relationship. The case demonstrates both the difference in how value is perceived by the involved parties, and illustrates what is perceived as value. The study concludes with a discussion on interdependencies between the parties – that value co-creation potential is realized through developing and exploiting interdependencies – with the ultimate aim of achieving efficiency in transactions and/or more efficient resource use. The main theoretical base for the thesis is the Industrial Network Approach and more specifically the initial works of the IMP group, namely the interaction approach.
Publish Year: 2005