The decision to internalize vertical business activities along the value chain is the topic of a voluminous economic literature considering the dynamic requirements of end-users, and the complexity of incentives to engage human resources and capabilities. The guiding economic rationales for defining firm boundaries emphasize economic efficiencies, economies of scale, minimizing transaction costs, and containment of potential moral hazards through appropriate contractual arrangements. Empirical studies confirm many of the theoretical rationales but also present contradictions and tradeoffs that challenge the practical governance of vertically integrated business activities. These challenges prevail under contemporary market turbulence that calls for effective incentives to engage entrepreneurial resources and specific market intelligence, while monitoring is very difficult and costly. In this context, this study provides deeper insight into the governance requirements of modern forward integrated manufacturing firms.
The detailed case study of a representative company in the European automotive manufacturing industry provides first-hand information about the governance challenges of forward integration and their consequences. The study shows how internal corporate structures and incentive systems affect the tradeoffs between economic efficiencies and adaptive capabilities – all under changing international market conditions. The analysis demonstrates that efforts to enhance economic efficiencies and reduce moral hazard costs, without considering structures and incentives that engage specialized downstream competences, can be costly. These findings provide needed nuance to our understanding of effective integrative management approaches in dynamic complex markets where the value-adding activities close to the end-users are paramount for corporate performance.
Key words: corporate strategy, competitiveness, coordination, forward integration, incentives, innovation, authority.
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INTRODUCTION
Over the past thirty years, traditional manufacturers of capital goods have faced increasing competition from low cost production and commodification imposed by increasing globalization (Spring and Araujo, 2013; Wu et al., 2005). The scholarly advice to deal with this empirical trend has been to integrate forward from manufacturing along the value chain into distribution, including sales and other value adding services (Harrigan, 1986; Baines, 2015; Neely, 2008;
Wise and Baumgartner, 1999). The premise for this advice is indeed convincing. With the service sectors growing in the global economy and making up more than 70% of gross value added within the EU (EU Commission, 2017), intangible services generate significantly more value than traditional manufacturing (Rungi and Del Prete, 2018). Various cases of global manufacturing firms, e.g., ABB, Apple, Alstrom, Catarpillar, MAN, Rolls-Royce Aerospace, Xerox (Baines et al., 2011; Baines, 2015) are used to exemplify companies that successfully integrate downstream activities to deliver enhanced customer value. Yet, where forward integration should increase profits, it is paradoxical that many manufacturing firms struggle to turn the proposed strategic advantages of forward integration into improved business performance (Benedettini, et al., 2015; Gebauer et al., 2005; Harrigan, 1986; Visnjic et al., 2013, Visnjic et al., 2016). For example, a quick glance at the annual reports of MAN, a prominent constituent in the group of the allegedly successfully integrated manufacturing firms, reveals that the company has been unable to outperform its industry peers and turn the decision to integrate forward into a competitive advantage. In other words, there is a noticeable discrepancy between the general beliefs about the benefits of forward integration and the outcomes observed in reality, which deserves further examination.
The literature on forward integration to advance value adding downstream market activities point to product differentiation, better product-service configurations, improved customer relationships, etc. as factors that will enhance firms’ competitive advantage (Lightfoot et al., 2013). Important studies on manufacturers’ integration of downstream value adding activities (e.g., Baines and Lightfoot, 2014; Bustinza et al., 2015; Gebauer et al., 2005; Oliva and Kallenberg, 2003) all point to dedicated functions with specialized knowledge that arguably create superior customer value. They also note the importance of measurable performance indicators when decentralized business units operate as profit centers (Gebauer et al., 2005;
Oliva and Kallenberg, 2003). However, when large investments are committed in production and R&D, as often is the case in traditional manufacturing firms (Galbraith, 1983; Tukker,
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2005), new challenging interdependencies emerge along the value chain (Thompson, 1967). For a manufacturing firm this presents a radical change in the adopted business model (Gebauer et al., 2010; Kindström and Kowalkowski, 2015; Teece, 2010) because the downstream value adding activities previously operated by independent distributors now are integrated. Successful integration then assumes that the new corporate hierarchy is more effective than the prior contractual market transactions it replaces. Still, this might not always be the case.
Successful integration assumes that important value-adding activities along the value chain are (more) effective and efficient when performed under common asset ownership. This relates to the question of optimal firm boundaries as a main concern in corporate strategy. Empirical studies on firm boundaries point to a variety of economic efficiency factors that influence the integration decision (e.g., Bain, 1959; Barney, 1999; Connor, 1991; Demsetz, 1988; Grant, 1996; Nelson and Winter, 1982; Tirole, 1988; Wernerfeldt, 1984). Other studies focus on minimizing transaction costs managed through contractual arrangements (e.g., Alchian, and Demsetz, 1972; Coase, 1937; Holmstrom and Milgrom, 1991; Grossman and Hart, 1986; Klein, Crawford and Alchian, 1978; Williamson; 1979, 1985). However, these boundary theories generate conflicting integration arguments.
Transaction cost economics (Williamson, 1971, 1979, 1985) has often been used to reason on the firms’ upstream boundaries, the make or buy questions, but ambiguity arises in the discussions about forward channel integration and the integration of a downstream sales force (Anderson and Schmittlein, 1984; Anderson, 1985; Brettel et al., 2010; Teece, 2010). The theoretical rationales to determine downstream boundaries have mostly related to internalized incentives and mitigating moral hazard (Brickley and Dark, 1987; Kalnins and Lafontaine, 2013; Lafontaine and Slade, 2007; Woodruff, 2002). Different perspectives point to specific issues that can be resolved through integration, but at the same time uncover a number of tradeoffs that make scholars argue for better consolidation of theories (e.g., Gibbons, 2010;
Holmström and Milgrom, 1994; Nooteboom, 2004; Williamson, 1998). The potential for conflicting prescriptions arises when arguments for increased control (Coase, 1937; Simon, 1951; Williamson, 1975) point to forward integration, but property rights theory (Grossman and Hart, 1986; Woodruff, 2002) and moral hazard concerns (Alchian and Demsetz, 1972; Baker and Hubbard, 2004; Brickley and Dark, 1987; Kosová et al., 2013; Lafonatine and Slade, 2007) advocate segregated ownership of assets. The conflicting advice is especially pronounced when
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the downstream activities depend on idiosyncratic resources and capabilities to generate value (Kosová et al., 2013; Lafontaine and Slade, 2007; Lightfoot et al., 2013; Woodruff, 2002).
Hence, the governance of forward integration in manufacturing firms that incorporate more complex downstream markets with related activities presents new intangible dependencies that are difficult to manage effectively (Baines, 2015; Oliva and Kallenberg, 2003; Story et al., 2017).
This illustrates, that while it is possible to create competitive advantage from forward integration in ways that cater to the importance of downstream value adding efforts, it also introduces new internal coordination challenges (e.g., Gibbons, 2010; Grossman and Hart, 1986;
Kosová et al., 2013; Lafontaine and Slade, 2007; Rosen, 1991). The various tradeoffs created by a forward integration strategy requires a more complete understanding of long-linked interdependencies, decision structures, and incentive systems – along with their effects on the ability to add value from all the value chain activities. The advantages of an integrated organization should derive from properly coordinated vertical business activities that improve the competitiveness of the final products, reduce production and administrative costs along the value chain (Arrow, 1974; Chandler, 1977; Coase, 1937; D’Aveni and Ravenscraft, 1994;
Williamson, 1971, 1975) with aligned incentives (Eccles, 1985; Holmtröm and Milgrom, 1994;
Jensen and Meckling, 1976; Klein, 1995; Riordan 2008). Nonetheless, stating this stringent rationale is easier than executing things in the context of complex and technologically advanced products that are sold to diverse professional buyers across dynamic international markets.
Hence, the observed discrepancies between (potentially contradictory) theoretical prescriptions and corporate outcomes raise a highly pertinent question about how major manufacturing firms actually govern the forward integration into distribution and sales under turbulent market conditions.
Adopting a case study methodology is appropriate for such an inquiry to gain a deeper understanding of highly complex real-life conditions embraced by conflicting theoretical rationales in rapidly changing industry contexts (Welch et al., 2011; Yin, 2018). Hence, we assume an idiographic perspective and examine the contextualized observations from a representative company in view of particular theoretical rationales, as opposed to adopting a purely a-theoretical approach (Levy, 2008). However, recognizing the constraints of theory-guided study, we also apply a systematic inductive approach to derive concepts from the
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collected data with qualitative rigor (Gioia, et al., 2012) going back and forth between observations and theory to ‘abductively’ improve our understanding of both (Dubois and Gadde, 2002). The case study of a major European manufacturing firm provides insights into the challenges of forward integration into distribution, sales, services, and the logic assumed to justify the use of certain governance instruments.
In this industry, both upstream manufacturing capabilities and downstream distribution, sales, and service activities are considered important to create value and competitive advantage.
This market context is comprised by complex technical products sold to very demanding customers operating in dynamic markets representing what is referred to as complex distribution (Bering, 2020a). The economic rationales for forward integration in this industry argue for value creation from differentiated products that satisfy specific customer needs and relationships (e.g., Baines et al., 2007; Lightfoot et al., 2013; Mathieu, 2001; Oliva and Kallenberg; 2003). The case study explores how this representative manufacturing organization governs its forward integration platform and product distribution efforts towards the final users in the market. The generated insights offer a contextualized explanation for the choices made to govern forward integration in a large incumbent firm, and the differential performance outcomes across peers in the industry that derive from this.
The remainder of the article is structured as follows. First, we present the key theoretical rationales that inform the case study of forward integration, introduce the applicable complex distribution context, and discuss contractual arrangements between manufacturing and distribution. Then we outline the empirical study on governance of forward integration in the identified manufacturing firm presenting the qualitative study and its findings. Finally, we summarize the results and discuss the implications of the acquired insights.