Building and nurturing partner relationship in collaborative product development

The aim of the study is to understand the underlying success factors of building a long-term, mutually beneficial collaborative product development relationship in a strongly market-driven and complex technology area. The research considers the challenges of developing strategic partnerships. This paper discusses the preliminary results of one case study conducted in a multi-case research project of leading collaboration in networked business. The research material of the study consists of interviews and other documented material of a new product development collaboration relationship between a Western and an Asian company. The focus is on people's experiences and perceptions on collaboration from the viewpoints of communication, knowledge sharing, trust and learning in multicultural relationship. The results show that successful relationship building requires clearly defined objectives for the collaboration, strong management commitment on both sides, transparency in processes and strong emphasis on direct communication relations and genuine willingness of mutual learning.