A joint modeling and exploratory framework for intra-firm collaboration within construction and mining equipment industry
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/IMDS-06-2022-0372 |
| Published date | 17 November 2022 |
| Date | 17 November 2022 |
| Pages | 451-491 |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information systems,Data management systems,Knowledge management,Knowledge sharing,Management science & operations,Supply chain management,Supply chain information systems,Logistics,Quality management/systems |
| Author | Mohit Goswami,Felix T.S. Chan,M. Ramkumar,Yash Daultani,Saurabh Pratap,Ankita Chhabra |
A joint modeling and exploratory
framework for intra-firm
collaboration within construction
and mining equipment industry
Mohit Goswami
Operations Management Group, Indian Institute of Management Raipur,
Raipur, India
Felix T.S. Chan
Department of Decision Sciences, Macau University of Science and Technology,
Macau, China
M. Ramkumar
Operations Management and Quantitative Techniques Group,
Indian Institute of Management Raipur, Raipur, India
Yash Daultani
Operations Management Group, IIM Lucknow, Lucknow, India
Saurabh Pratap
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (BHU),
Varanasi, India, and
Ankita Chhabra
Strategy Area, Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh, UK
Abstract
Purpose –In this research, collaboration attributes related to the firm’s intrinsic and extrinsic
facets at pertinent levels (i.e. enterprise, strategic, operational, and tactical levels) for construction
equipment OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) operating in India have been quantified and
modeled.
Design/methodology/approach –For modeling the intra-firmcollaboration at respective organizational
levels, relevant attributes have been populated employing literature review followed by subsequent
validation from pertinent focus groups. The focus groups comprising professionals working in the
construction and mining equipment industry in India aided us in estimating the extent of
interdependencies and influences within/amongst collaboration attributes. The collaboration attributes
and respective interdependencies/influences are modeled employing the concept of graph theory wherein
the individual attributes are represented using vertices and influences/interdependencies are represented
using edges. The collaboration indices resulting from the variable permanent matrixhavebeenderived
as well.
Findings –Scenario and subsequent sensitivity analysis are performed. This research discusses the
significance and aspects related to various collaborative attributes and the interrelations amongst them.
Further, the research also evolves quantitative measures of collaboration indices at enterprise, strategic,
tactical and operational levels by employing a graph-theoretic approach (GTA). The authors have also
extricated and discussed a number of meaningful implications from both the perspectives of
interorganizational relationships (IORs) and the normative theory of organizations using a cross-case
analysis of five firms having operations in India.
Originality/value –The research would aid organizations (particularly those belonging to the
construction equipment sector) measure the efficacy of collaboration in respective value-chains at
strategic, tactical and operational levels. From the theoretical perspective,the integration of the IORs and
normative theory of organizations enables looking at the intra-firm collaboration problem from a multi-
Construction
and mining
equipment
industry
451
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0263-5577.htm
Received 15 June 2022
Revised 14 August 2022
14 September 2022
4 October 2022
Accepted 6 October 2022
Industrial Management & Data
Systems
Vol. 123 No. 2, 2023
pp. 451-491
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0263-5577
DOI 10.1108/IMDS-06-2022-0372
dimensional standpoint involving activities, performance measures, action initiation, communication,
shades of top management, level of activity, etc.
Keywords Collaborative engineering, Information sharing, Construction and mining equipment industry,
Focus group
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Improving intra-firm relationships driven by effective collaboration amongst pertinent
functional agencies has been argued as a provenstrategybycompaniestoconsolidatetheir
respective competitive advantages (Despoudi et al., 2018;Mehdikhani and Valmohammadi,
2019;Li et al., 2022). Organizational collaboration is one of the driving forces enabling
organizations to streamline their value-chain activities and maximize value creation (Chen
et al., 2014;Wen et al., 2017;Czarnitzki et al., 2015). Effective intra-firm collaboration
amongst the value-chain partners within organization results in streamlining the flow of
information, money and products across organizational boundaries (Kolfschoten et al.,
2010;Flores-Fillol et al., 2017). This in turn improves the agility, adaptability and
predictability of value-chains (Chen et al., 2014;Tsanos et al., 2014;Tsai and Chi, 2015;Liu
and Liang, 2015). In the context of an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and at an
intra-firm level, the value-chain is constituted of internal stakeholders (functional
departments). Functional departments within any product-centric manufacturing firm
are the pillars that support organizations in carrying out their business, i.e. from ideating a
product to salvaging it once the product’s useful life is exceeded. In the context of a typical
construction and mining equipment manufacturer (CME), typically six major functional
agencies, viz. marketing, sales, product development, supply chain, manufacturing and
after-sales support, are responsible for tactical, operational and strategic level execution of
the firm’s business objectives (Goswami and Tiwari, 2014). These functional agencies
within an OEM need to consider inputs pertaining to strategic, tactical and operational
dimensions in executing their short-, medium- and long-term plans. These individual
entities within the enterprise are entrusted to execute their respective responsibilities in
that it becomes critical for these agencies to collaborate amongst themselves effectively.
This in turn drivesefficiency, flexibility and sustainable competitive advantage for the firm
in view of the strategic, tactical and operational nuances (Ok and Sinha, 2006;Cao and
Zhang, 2011;Pennec and Raufflet, 2018;Johnstone, 2019;Golgeci et al., 2019).
The extant literature on collaboration has some major thematic focus areas. Relational
characteristics have been shown to be an important driver of collaboration both within the
organization and the industry (Kong et al., 2016;Cai et al., 2016;Castaner and Oliveira, 2020).
Stakeholder and customer perspectives acting as crucial levers enabling collaboration have
been also highlighted by studies such as Hofmann and Locker (2009) and Zhao et al. (2016).
Activity-based perspectives such as information sharing, joint relationship effort, joint
project ownership, risk sharing, dedicated investment, etc. in the context of collaboration
have been studied as well in the extant research literature (Anand and Bihinipati, 2012;Zhao
et al., 2016;Nix and Zacharia, 2014;Sacks et al., 2017;Almeida et al., 2019). The desired level of
collaboration among various functional agencies is usually contingent upon the underlying
philosophy of information sharing along with related mechanisms and practices (Sandberg,
2007;Nebukenya et al., 2011;Badillo and Moreno, 2016;Chen et al., 2019;Jraisat et al., 2021;
Teng et al., 2022). Aspects such as trust and commitment across the value chain have been
found to positively influence customer satisfaction, operational and financial performance,
thus resulting in an enhanced competitive advantage for the firm (Das et al., 2015;Salam,
2017). Further, the normative forces within organizations such as those related
to organizational culture, organizational structures, communication philosophy, top
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management, etc. also influence the degree and effectiveness of collaboration. According to
the normative paradigm, organizations are expected to conform to norms, prescriptions,
culture and systems considered to be legitimate by relevant professional groupings within
the organization (Garcia-Sanchez et al., 2016).
Despite being aware of the merits of collaboration as an important business strategy,
many companies often fail at practical execution. The lack of matrices to evaluate
collaboration is one such critical reason for failure (Kumar and Banerjee, 2014;Lovstal and
Jontoft, 2017). In the context of supply chains, the evaluation of inter-firm and intra-firm
collaboration has been conceptualized by various theoretical, empirical and analytical studies
employing structured methodologies. Though many studies have evaluated collaboration
focused on supply chains, the current research literature is quite scarce when it comes to
evaluating intra-organizational collaboration (i.e. collaboration amongst functional agencies
within a firm). This is especially important considering the need to understand interactions of
strategic, tactical and operational attributes such that congruence of actions throughout the
value chain of the firm can be facilitated. Therefore, it is imperative for the OEM to devise a
user-friendly and pragmatic framework that can model collaborative elements amongst the
functional stakeholders thus facilitating more proactive use of non-financial performance-
based measurement (J€
a€
askel€
ainen and Thitz, 2018). Further, the proposed model should be
able to capture elements related to crucial strate gic-, tactical- and operational-level
collaborative dimensions. From a theoretical perspective, different theories have been
deployed to define, explain and describe collaboration across value chains. Transaction cost
economics (TCEs), resource dependence theory (RDT), the resource-based view (RBV) and
contingency theory (CT) have been some of the dominant theories that explain collaboration
within organizations (Despoudi et al., 2018). Castaner and Oliveira (2020) have advocated for
the examination of bo th inter-firm and intr a-firm collaboratio n practices from the
perspectives of interorganizational relationships (IORs) and the normative theory of
organizations particularly considering the multi-dimensional views (such as the organization,
processes, communication, etc.) of collaboration. Therefore, in keeping abreast with the recent
trends in augmenting methodologies for the assessment and evaluation of intra-firm
collaboration and deriving meaningful insights based on theoretical exploration, the primary
objectives in this research are outlined as follows.
(1) Discuss the significance and aspects related to various collaboration attributes and
interrelations amongst them.
(2) Evolve quantitative measures of collaboration at enterprise, strategic, tactical, and
operational levels by employing a graph-theoretic approach (GTA).
(3) Demonstrate our evolved methodology for an OEM and carry out a cross-case
qualitative analysis based on major CME manufacturers in India and extricate key
implications.
(4) Explore the findings from the perspectives of the normative theory of organizations
and IORs.
In this research, the CME industry is chosen as the focal sector for collaboration modeling
owing to the industry’s economic significance considering that this sector is one of the largest
industrial sectors (perhaps after the automotive industry). Further, akin to the automotive
sector, the CME industry has seen significant technological (such as networked mining and
additive manufacturing) disruptions, thus making continual assessment and evaluation of
intra-firm collaboration imperative.
The remainder of the article is arranged as follows. Sections 2 and 3present the literature
review and modeling of inter-firm collaboration problem respectively. Section 4 demonstrates
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and mining
equipment
industry
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