Externalization of the core: antecedents of collaborative relationships with suppliers

Contrary to conventional wisdom in the field of strategy, this paper assumes that the critical resources of a firm may be developed and strengthened through external transactions. From a sample of 150 Norwegian manufacturing firms, 78 use external suppliers in the core. Three dimensions of collaborative relationships in transactions with these suppliers are analyzed; the level of trust, information exchange and bilateral projects. Asset specificity correlated positively with all three dimensions as predicted, while there was a significant positive correlation (consistent with the hypotheses) between the level of change related to the core on the one hand and information exchange and bilateral projects on the other hand.