Issue |
E.J.E.S.S.
Volume 15, Number 2, 2001
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Page(s) | 3 - 16 | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/ejess:2001112 |
European Journal of Economic and Social Systems 15 N° 2 (2001) 3-16
A dyadic segmentation approach to business partnerships
Jacques-Marie Aurifeille1 and Christopher John Medlin21 University of La Réunion, FACIREM lab. E-mail: aurifeil@univ-reunion.fr
2 School of Commerce, Adelaide University, 5005 Australia
Abstract
In business science, the studied objects are often groups of partners rather
than independent firms. Extending classical segmentation to these polyads raises
conceptual problems, principally: defining what should be considered as common or
specific at the partners' and at the segment levels. The general approaches consist
either in merging partners characteristics and performances into a single macro-object,
thus loosing their specific contributions to each partner's performance, or in modelling
partners' performance as if their models were independent. As a step to understanding,
how partnership influences firms' performance, the dyadic (i.e. two partners') case
is studied. First, some theoretical issues concerning the degrees of individual and
contributive interest in a dyadic population are discussed. Next, partnership's
conceptualisation is based upon two models for each firm: a "self-model" that reflects
how the firm's characteristics explain its own performance, and a "contributive-model" model that reflects how these characteristics
influence the partner's performance.
This allows definition of three relationship modes: merging, teaming and sharing.
Subsequently, dyad segmentation strategies are discussed according to their capacity
to reflect the modes of partnership and a dyadic clusterwise regression method,
based on a genetic algorithm, is presented. Finally, the method is illustrated
empirically using actual data of business partners in the software market.
Key words: Business partnership, relationships, segmentation, dyads, genetic algorithm
© EDP Sciences 2001