A Taxonomy For Interorganizational Production Networks

Manufacturing industries are facing increasing customer demands, dynamic markets, and high cost pressure. Digital innovations increasingly empower the implementation of interorganizational production networks that contribute to achieving goals, such as reducing order risks and maintaining flexibility as well as speed of reaction by utilizing synergy potentials. Additionally, trends like Industry 4.0 or Sharing Economy require innovative, adaptive, and resilient institutional arrangements. The description and design of these networks represent a significant challenge, since production networks in and between many companies have been established over the last decades, in most instances historically grown without being explicitly planned. We aim to develop a classification using a conceptual approach based on a structured literature analysis with an initial focus on interorganizational production networks. Within a hierarchical framework, we first classify types of collaboration between organizations. We analyze the purpose as well as the structure of interorganizational production networks by developing a taxonomy. To exemplary show the successful application, a typology is developed by assigning selected dimensions to the most common types of interorganizational networks. This study’s results are a first step towards supporting companies in planning new production networks when evaluating a suitable form of collaboration. Within further research, the taxonomy should be evaluated with real-world scenarios. The robustness of the taxonomy should be tested in a broader range of industries. Based on this taxonomy, it could be examined whether there are similarities in the strategies for adopting specific structural forms to achieve certain purposes. By using the taxonomy, concrete recommendations for action regarding digital innovations to support and enhance production networks, e. g. platforms for sharing manufacturing capacities, can be derived.