Culture as a driving force for interfirm adaptation: A Chinese case

The concept of interfirm adaptation is a critical component in the IMP (industrial marketing and purchasing) paradigm. The existing wisdom points to the "five metaphors" (investment, decision making, political process, learning, and evolution) as the cognitive map for understanding the mechanisms of interfirm adaptations. This article, however, reveals that culture can be a significant force driving interfirm adaptations. An empirical case of a Chinese shipyard negotiating large shipbuilding projects with Scandinavian ship owner and classification society is used to illustrate the role that culture plays in inter;firm adaptations. The article concludes by suggesting adding a new metaphor-the culture metaphor-to the list of the metaphors to better understand the workings of interfirm adaptation in business relationships. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.