Collaboration between housebuilding firms and suppliers for the implementation of innovation strategies: A strategy-as-practice approach

Establishing long-term relationships, cooperating and making decisions with suppliers has become a major requisite for firms' performance and for implementing innovation. Strategic collaboration may thus represent a mutual benefit for the actors involved, even if it might be tough to establish open communication, and good will for sharing resources, knowledge and risk in a business context.There is a gap in literature in terms of analysing innovation “strategizing” between firms and suppliers using a practice-based approach. In this context, strategy-as-practice (SAP) assumes an important purpose of examining the role of human agencies, and objects to implement strategies. It also considers decision-making techniques as part of a collective knowledge and learning process within an organisation. This appreciation towards the social nature of strategy has led the focus of SAP on social practices, such as strategic meetings and workshops.This research aims to analyse how house building firms engage their suppliers to develop innovation strategies, and the distribution and characteristics of power between the firm and suppliers is examined. Particular attention is paid to the micro-dynamics of firm-supplier interaction, as well as relations of powers, through which innovation strategy is formulated. The research uses qualitative methods, drawing on the SAP approach, based on observations and interviews to suppliers and firms within some case studies to be considered.The main deliverable of this study is to identify how the micro-dynamics of a specific practice and setting (e.g. activities within a collaborative meeting or workshop) influence the way house building firms engage their suppliers to inform their innovation strategy. This article presents some initial results concerning one of the largest house builders in the UK. These qualitative data will then be compared to further data of different sized firms in order to evaluate and refine 'best practice' guidance regarding supplier engagement in innovation strategizing.