Abstract
Diversification of a firm's customer/supplier base may often cause difficult problems for outsourcing of R&D-related activities. However, our surveys clarify that the business relationship between Japanese car manufacturers and their major suppliers are currently not only enlarging the scope of customer/supplier bases but, at the same time, are also strengthening R&D-related ties. More specifically, car manufactures tend to prefer, especially in a relatively small number of important projects, close collaboration with their core suppliers with which they have long-term stable dealings and various shared routines. Since these projects involve the development of new technologies, it is extremely difficult to manage them in an ordinary joint development scheme. On the other hand, however, in less technically advanced and relatively simpler projects where car manufacturers do not need to be as cautious, they would like to deal with new and additional suppliers. Thus the "diversification of customer/supplier base" refers to the former category of joint development projects, and the "strengthening of R&D-related ties" to the latter, so the concurrent manifestation of these two seemingly contradictory movements can be reconciled. This paper provides a more detailed description of this kind of "multi-project" situation based on the results of our surveys and interviews.
