Abstract
The access to technological resources and capabilities by a company may involve the establishment and development of business relationships with specific suppliers. These relationships may reflect both general, prescribed or formal, purchasing orientations (i.e. adversarial vs cooperative approaches) and more specific evaluation criteria of suppliers. This paper aims to analyze the relevance of inconsistencies between the two levels for the emergence and search for solutions to failures in the accomplishment of functional specifications in the stage of the series production, i.e. when both parties are interdependent. The starting point for the empirical study was non-accomplishments of functional specifications involving an auto manufacturer and some of its suppliers, followed by an exposition of the searching processes for solutions, often by trial and error, involving several departments and firms. The results of the study suggests that these processes may reflect the tensions between transactional and cooperative orientations regarding business relationships with suppliers, a fragmented view of NPD and series production activities and targets, and the lack of integration of the criteria used for the evaluation of suppliers within the customer company. In face of inconsistencies between the formal purchasing orientation and the specific frameworks used to evaluate suppliers during series production, local solutions may emerge at operational level, which may be contrasted with existing formal orientations.

Key words: business relationships, supplier evaluation, functional specifications

Similar Articles

Functional plasticity in oyster gut microbiomes along a eutrophication gradient in an urbanized estuary.
Stevick RJ, Post AF, Gómez-Chiarri M
Animal microbiome. 2021; 3(1): 5

Recent Advances in Food Emulsions and Engineering Foodstuffs Using Plant-Based Nanocelluloses.
Bai L, Huan S, Zhu Y, Chu G, McClements DJ, Rojas OJ
Annual review of food science and technology. 2021; 12(): 383-406

Neuropsychopharmacology (NPP): update on relationships between online attention and citation counts.
Jordan CJ, Martinowich K, Carlezon WA
Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. 2021; ():

Focusing on functional knee parameter determination to develop a better clinical gait analysis protocol.
Leboucher J, Salami F, Öztürk O, Heitzmann DWW, Götze M, Dreher T, Wolf SI
Gait & posture. 2021; 84(): 127-136

Chromatin Landscapes of Human Lung Cells Predict Potentially Functional COPD GWAS Variants.
Benway CJ, Liu J, Guo F, Du F, Randell SH, Cho MH, Silverman EK, Zhou X,
American journal of respiratory cell and molecular biology. 2021; ():

Evaluation of the hepatoprotective effects of curcumin and nanocurcumin against paraquat-induced liver injury in rats: Modulation of oxidative stress and Nrf2 pathway.
Kheiripour N, Plarak A, Heshmati A, Asl SS, Mehri F, Ebadollahi-Natanzi A, Ranjbar A, Hosseini A
Journal of biochemical and molecular toxicology. 2021; (): e22739

Effect of ultra-high pressure treatment on the functional properties of poly (lactic acid)/ZnO nanocomposite food packaging film.
Cui R, Fan C, Dong X, Fang K, Li L, Qin Y
Journal of the science of food and agriculture. 2021; ():

Analytical evaluation of serum non-transferrin-bound iron and its relationships with oxidative stress and cardiac load in the general population.
Sugiura T, Dohi Y, Takase H, Fujii S, Seo Y, Ohte N
Medicine. 2021; 100(7): e24722