Managing collaborative relationships in a period of discontinuity Paul Coughlan, David Coghlan, Fiona Lombard, Louis Brennan, Timothy McNichols and Roger Nolan School of Business Studies, Trinity College, University of Dublin, Dublin, Ireland Keywords Manufacturing industries, Economic change, Ireland Abstract The recent slowdown in the global economy has been a trigger for discontinuous change, prompting many organisations to re-examine their collaborative strategies. This paper, focuses on the management of collaborative relationships in a period of discontinuity, presents, compares and contrasts three case studies, each of distinctly separate systems integrators from within the high technology sector in Ireland. The case data presented were gathered in 2001 as part of CO-IMPROVE – an EU-funded action research project focused on collaborative improvement within the extended manufacturing enterprise. This paper presents a cross case analysis that examines different choices faced by these systems integrators in their management of collaborative relationships with their supply bases. Introduction Large-scale or discontinuous change is triggered by destabilising events of sufficient scope and magnitude to create significant disequilibria in the organisation (Nadler et al., 1995). Destabilising events include shifts in industry structure, technological innovation, macroeconomic trends and crises, regulatory or legal changes, market and competitive forces and growth. The recent global slowdown differs from others in the past half-century in three ways that may determine its outcome: the economic weakness is more widespread than in previous downturns; inflation is low; and, it is an investment-led downturn (The Economist, 2001). Of particular relevance to the focus of this paper is the origin of the first of these characteristics: the increasing integration of economies through trade and investment. Before the slowdown and its associated instability, changing patterns within global business, the evolution of industry systems, and the ongoing advances in information and communications technology (ICT) were already changing the competitive environment. Across many industries, key success factors were expanding to include speed, flexibility and responsiveness. Firms were facing up to the opportunities of novel ways of organising, including networks. The nature of competition itself was evolving from a predominately firm versus firm basis to an extended manufacturing enterprise (EME) versus EME basis. These changes were having major The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at http://www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister http://www.emeraldinsight.com/0144-3577.htm IJOPM 23,10 1246 International Journal of Operations & Production Management Vol. 23 No. 10, 2003 pp. 1246-1259 q MCB UP Limited 0144-3577 DOI 10.1108/01443570310496652