Doctoral paper Supply chain partnering: a temporal multidisciplinary approach Desire ´e Knoppen and Ellen Christiaanse ESADE Business School, Universidad de Ramon Llull, Information Systems Department, Barcelona, Spain Abstract Purpose – The aim of this paper is to develop a multidisciplinary approach towards supply chain partnering to increase sensitivity for providing more powerful explanations of this complex, dynamic and sometimes paradoxical phenomenon. Design/methodology/approach – The methodology employed is conceptual theory development, grounded upon transaction cost economics, organizational design, and organization behaviour theory. Findings – The main concerns of partnering are appropriation, coordination and adaptation. The relative importance of each concern varies depending on the partnership’s stage of development. The paper argues that the different bodies of literature each emphasize a different concern. Consequently, the multidisciplinary approach developed has a temporal nature and the three mentioned bodies of literature fit in different stages with associated concerns. Research limitations/implications – Propositions for empirical testing are developed, regarding, for example, the impact of adaptation on the risk of appropriation. Practical implications – Understanding the interrelation between the different concerns can increase the success of a partnership. Originality/value – The temporal approach contributes by drawing a full picture of supply chain partnering, which is not obtained by viewing each one of its constituting bodies of literature in isolation. Keywords Supply chain management, Partnership Paper type Conceptual paper Introduction Authors in the field of supply chain management increasingly call for research that extends beyond the dyad. This seems correct in the sense that a global context characterized by volatile demand and accelerated speed of technological changes requires competition between entire supply chains or networks rather than between individual firms or dyads (Christopher, 2003). Nonetheless, it does not seem completely correct since attempts at supply chain partnering (i.e. “close long-term links between organizations in a supply chain that remain distinct”, Boddy et al., 2000, p. 1004) are still more likely to fail than to succeed (Boddy et al., 2000; Spekman et al., 1998a; Gulati, 1998). In a similar way that intra-company process integration ideally precedes inter- company integration (Lambert et al., 1998; Simatupang et al., 2004) it can be reasoned that dyadic integration ideally precedes chain or network integration. Consequently, sustained research efforts adhering to this dyadic level of analysis are required (Cox, 2004a; b; Lane and Lubatkin, 1998). It is the behavioural elements, rather than economic or technical elements, which are less well understood and experience more problems in supply chain partnering (Boddy et al., 2000; Lambert et al., 1998). It seems especially interesting to study the behavioural approach on partnering and how it relates to the more economic or technical approaches, since research efforts until now have mainly taken place within disciplinary silos and have therefore not harvested the benefits of multidisciplinary inquiry (Lewis and Grimes, 1999). In that regard, a review of the literature reveals that adaptation, appropriation, and coordination are the main elements or concerns of exchange (Jones et al., 1997), addressed by organization behaviour, transaction cost economics, and organizational design theory respectively. Consequently, the purpose of the paper is to develop a multidisciplinary approach on partnering to synthesize insights from various perspectives and increase our understanding of partnering. The structure of the paper is as follows. First, we show how the three main concerns of partnering and their respective bodies of literature fit in a temporal multidisciplinary approach. This approach is applicable for different types of partnerships, including those in the supply chain. Subsequently, for each stage of the proposed approach, we summarise the main findings in the literature and the underlying assumptions and transition zones (Lewis and Grimes, 1999). Here, the distinctive features of supply chain partnerships and the consequent relative importance of the different concerns are addressed. After that, we develop propositions for future empirical inquiry building upon the The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/1359-8546.htm Supply Chain Management: An International Journal 12/2 (2007) 164–171 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited [ISSN 1359-8546] [DOI 10.1108/13598540710737343] 164