Paper info

the co-development of solutions: a communities perspective

Florence Crespin-Mazet and Karine Goglio

The paper was published at the 25th IMP-conference in Marseille, France in 2009.

In a context of increased market globalization leading firms to focus on their core competences, the trend towards integrated solutions is clearly established both in industrial markets and in project business. Providing integrated solutions requires suppliers to identify complementary capabilities in the business network so as to complement their own. This research aims at understanding the dynamics leading firms which actually compete in the same supply chain to develop solutions in common and hence, transfer their knowledge and know-how to a competing firm. It explores in particular the role that communities of practice can play in this process of learning in networks. Based on an exploratory case study, the paper concludes on the key roles of two types of communities: communities of practice (role of knowledge formalization and sharing) but also epistemic communities (partner access & development of relational congruence between firms).