Download or read book Customer-supplier Relationships as a Means of Value Creation written by Aurelia Lefaix-Durand and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation argues that customer-supplier relationships are a means of value creation and represent a solution for organizations to increase their competitiveness. The research conducted to validate this thesis targets Canadian wood products manufacturers and follows the steps of exploration, theory building and empirical assessment. An exploratory study first documents the critical trends reshaping the supply chain of structural wood products for residential construction in North America and provides empirical data on procurement strategies of the largest U.S. homebuilders. Findings ground the necessity to focus on value creation and interfirm relationships to help Canadian wood products manufacturers capitalize on the changes detected in the business environment. A theoretical model is then built to identify and relate the key elements of the phenomenon of interfirm relationships as a means of value creation. This step leads to, on the one hand, extending the emergent construct of relationship value to measure value creation in relationships, and on the other hand, developing a new construct, exchange orientation, to position the nature and governance of relationships on the transactional/relational continuum. Finally, a multiple-case study investigates interfirm relationships in the North American supply chain for structural wood products through the lens of this new orientation/value approach to relationships. The findings indicate that a relational exchange orientation is associated with a superior relationship value for customers and with a competitive edge for suppliers. While the findings do not suggest abandoning a transactional orientation altogether, they do advocate that customer-supplier relationships should be strategically managed according to their value and the appropriate exchange orientation. This work thus underlies the future development of a general theory of business relationships. Such a theory will support the strategic management of customer-supplier relationships, likely to be one of the most powerful sources of value creation and competitive advantage in the next decades.