The competition for supplier resources

Suppliers can have a major influence on the overall competitiveness of a firm. When firms lack certain capabilities or resources within their own organization, collaborations with suppliers can help them to acquire these resources and capabilities externally and improve competitive advantage. However, for many firms, leveraging the supplier base for competitive resources remains a key challenge. This is especially the case when competing firms seek to acquire similar resources from the same supplier base. This dissertation examines how firms can acquire better resources than competitors from suppliers that are shared with these competitors. A central question is how can buying firms obtain preferential resource allocation from suppliers? This dissertation addresses the above question based on four research objectives. The first research objective includes an examination of the preferred customer status construct. The subsequent research objectives have a more theoretical focus. The chapters that link to these objectives build on the preferential resource allocation construct and theorize on the construct’s antecedents, the effects of the construct on the performance of the buying firm and the dimensions of the construct itself. The findings presented in this dissertation provide important insights to those interested in the competition for supplier resources. Practitioners can use these findings to make better decisions on the supply management practices they adopt to influence supplier resource allocation.