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INTERACTION EFFECTS ON PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT NETWORKS IN CHINA
ing together on an ongoing basis with the sub-supplier has established interpersonal
relationships with three key business actors; the general manager, technical engineer
and sales managers. However, during the project, the PD manager notes in an inter-
view that interacted on a daily basis with the Sales manager of the supplier. The two
key business actors of CNI and Vitalink since the beginning of the business relation-
ship with the Sichuan supplier visited many times its production site in order to in-
spect the machineries used as well as to understand their absorptive capacity as well
as learn about their network of partners and sub-suppliers. Through visiting the sup-
plier and meeting with key business actors, CN assured that the supplier has a high
level of technological background and thus, it was considered suitable to co-develop
knowledge-based resources with CN. It can also be noted that the Sichuan supplier
would have shown increased trust and commitment towards its relationship with CN
due to CN’s long-term relationship with Nokia.
However, initial samples were sent to Nokia and negative feedback reported defec-
tions. As the PD manager explains, after eighteen months of network creation and
evolution, Nokia put the project on hold due to the economic downturn. It could also
be that a large investment was further required for the production of the 3D Glass
and a more embedded set of relationships was needed within a network of high com-
plexity. Also, the demand side of Nokia, Nokia customers were not ready for such an
expensive device; the market was not ready. However, it was noted during the inter-
view with the sales manager that a future successful development of mobile hardware
technology would have changed the position of Nokia in the highly competitive mo-
bile hardware market. However, such an achievement would have required not only
knowledge-based resource interaction, but also economic and technical resource in-
teraction among many business actors on a long-term basis. For this case it can be
suggested that business actors from Nokia Denmark and Nokia R&D should form a 3D
Glass project team together with various actors from the supply side in China. A hor-
izontally integrated network would bring business actors closely together, which in
turn would bring along knowledge sharing and co-creation activities.
Case Study Four
5.4 Interpersonal Aspects of Relationship Formation and
Development: The Case of a Chinese State-Owned Tobacco
Manufacturer and a Western Supplier
This case study describes the nurturing and evolution of interpersonal relationships in
the context of a product development project involving business actors of the Shen-
