I'm your man: How suppliers gain strategic status in buying companies

摘要

Selecting suppliers and deciding which suppliers to develop strategic relationships with is important for buying organisations. However, little is known about how strategic suppliers become recognised as such in the first place. We provide a detailed and explorative case study of supplier categorisation processes among actors in buying organisations. The social process of categorising and evaluating supplier inputs has been referred to as status creation. We map sensegiving processes and how they influence supplier status development using a longitudinal case study approach. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.