Relational approach of vertical innovation cooperation: performance factors of client-supplier cooperation in innovation

Thesis defended on the 8th of September at 8:45pm.

The question now is no longer whether clients and suppliers need to cooperate in innovation; it is: how to make such vertical cooperation relationships successful? The challenge is that the issues related to innovation are coupled with those linked to the client-supplier relationship – whereas traditionally they are managed separately.

The objective of the thesis is to understand the dynamics of vertical innovation cooperation performance, considering inter-firms and intra-firms interactions. In order to do so, we mobilized a theoretical framework based on resource-based views, transaction cost theory and relationship marketing, and mixed qualitative and quantitative methods.

Using literature and data gleaned from interviews with practitioners, we first built a conceptual model made up of four intertwined elements: the dyad configuration, the relationship atmosphere, the innovation project and the relationship performance. Thanks to a survey with 160 answering suppliers describing a cooperation with one of their clients, we tested this model and validated it statistically. We then took part, in a twenty-month participating-observation, of a vertical innovation cooperation, embedded within the Innovation-Purchasing Direction of the client-firm. This cooperation was narrated and analyzed using our conceptual model.

The first contribution of the thesis is the conceptual model that (1) characterizes a vertical innovation cooperation based on appropriate variables, and (2) iteratively explains its dynamic. It is completed by a proposal of relationship performance measurement. Another contribution is to have demonstrated the complementarity between trust and interfirm control mechanisms.

Jury: