Section Four Supply Chains and Inter‐Organizational Roles: Between a Rock and a Hard Place? Medium‐Sized Firms in Manufacturing Supply Chains

The question of whether or not we are witnessing a profound transformation in the nature of relations between industrial buyers and their suppliers towards more collaborative ways of working lies at the heart of more general debates about the nature and direction of organisational change in late twentieth century capitalism. The emergence of, and growing interest in, new network forms of organisation ‐ as distinct from internal bureaucratic and external market‐based forms of transaction governance (e.g. Powell, 1990) ‐ appears to suggest that, in some sectors at least, new forms of relationship are developing between capitalist producers and their suppliers which, moreover, have implications for long term business success. Japanese just‐in‐time production systems, in particular, have had an important influence upon contemporary manufacturing thinking and practice and in many respects are said to provide key elements of a model of ‘best practice’ in the organisation and management of buyer‐supplier relations. The theme of close inter‐organisational collaboration is also apparent in the analysis of, and debates surrounding, new or emergent modes of organisation ‐ for example, the networks of local small firms identified in the ‘flexible specialisation’ literature.