Business relationships may simultaneously exhibit several types of behaviours, including such traits as cooperation and conflict. These features have an impact on the performance of inter-firm organising efforts in activity patterns and resource constellations. The level of involvement in business relationships affects inter-organisational coordination of activities and resource combining of product recovery arrangements. Some business relationships involved in product recovery settings of networks are not characterised by developed inter-organisational coordination.
Resource constellations with corresponding combinations, and activity patterns with related interdependencies, influence the organising structure of business relationships in product recovery arrangements. This refers to interactions of organisations involved in reverse flows of various product recovery options and between forward and reverse physical flows.
Network positions, features of business relationships, and the level of involvement in business relationships have an impact on information exchange, which is vital in linking of activities and resource combinations between firms. Organisation of information exchange with regard to the description of time, place, form, identity, and form characteristics of objects in reverse flows is of great significance to inter-organisational handling of uncertainty, activity interdependencies, and resource combinations. As pointed out above, sorting rules are utilised to classify information about objects in order to steer objects into adequate resource combinations. Resource adaptations enhance performance of resource combinations in product recovery through developed interfaces between interacting objects, organisational units, organisational relationships, and facilities. Interactions between resource constellations for forward and reverse physical flows, and for different product recovery options, may display a variety of tensions, which actors have to manage.
Actors are those that organise activities and resources. Therefore, important dimensions of the organising of the actor layer in product recovery are derived from the previous discussions concerning activities and resources. The first task in the exploration of the actor layer is to identify what actors are involved in the activities in the transvections, and what role they have in the combining of resources. The specific research issues in the actor layer concern:
- The role of business relationships in the interaction and positioning of actors.
- The role of information exchange in these processes.
53 In summary, these research issues are formulated in order to gain an understanding of the nature of business relationships and how these affect activity coordination and resource combining in product recovery structures. Having discussed research issues associated with the three separate dimensions of the Industrial Network Approach in three corresponding sections, these will now be elaborated upon in a summarised manner in the concluding part of this chapter.
2.6 Summary of research issues
The aim of this study is to explore the organising of product recovery from an inter-organisational perspective, through the development of a framework that permits analysis of business relationships in such structures. Based on this aim, the theoretical frame of reference of the thesis has been described in this chapter. The Industrial Network Approach is used as a main theoretical base in the study. This theoretical approach makes it possible to study product recovery in three separate, but interrelated, fundamental layers based on the three network dimensions of activities, resources and actors. With regard to organising product recovery, this examination can therefore be approached in three ways; organising product recovery in the activity pattern, in the resource constellation, and in the web of actors. After each section that described concepts related to three layers, research issues have been pointed out. These issues are summarised below.
In the activity layer of the Industrial Network Approach, the central research issue is to identify transvections that represent various forms of product recovery options (from reuse to recycling), and activity interdependencies combined with distinctive ways of applying principles of postponement and speculation. The sorting and transformation activities in these transvections are thus analysed with regard to the occurrence of:
- Parallel dependencies and similarities.
- Sequential dependencies and complementarities.
- Postponement versus speculation.
- Uncertainties as to time, place, form, and identity.
The main research issue in the resource dimension is to apply the 4R model in order to analyse resource adaptations and tensions by exploring the interfaces among resources along the transvection, including:
- Interfaces between the object and other products.
- Interfaces between the object and facilities.
- Interfaces between the object and organisational units.
- Interfaces between the object and organisational relationships.
54 Organising product recovery by coordinating activities and combining resources is performed by actors. Hence, for the actor layer, the key research issue is to identify and explore relationships between organisations in product recovery arrangements and the roles of actors that are involved in activity coordination and resource combining in transvections. The specific research issues in the actor layer concern:
- The role of business relationships in the interaction and positioning of actors.
- The role of information exchange in these processes.
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3 METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS
In the first part of this chapter, the actual research process is described as it relates to the iterative and emergent development of the case studies and the analytical framework. The research method applied is presented in the second part of this chapter. Here, the choices regarding the research approach, case selection, and the methods for collection of data are dealt with. Finally, the quality of the study will be evaluated.