This study tests a path analytic model of buyer-supplier relationships, linking the supplier's level of trust to three categories of inter-firm cooperative behaviors and these behaviors to the buyer's perception of the relationship's performance. Data was used from a survey of 164 dyads composed of a purchasing manager and a counterpart in a firm that they identified as their most cooperative suppliers. Higher levels of inter-organizational cooperative behaviors such as shared planning and flexibility in coordinating activities were found to be strongly linked to the supplier's trust in the buyer firm. However, not all of the types of cooperative behaviors, particularly joint responsibility for problem solving, had significant impacts on the buyer's perceptions of the relationship's performance.

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Co‐opetition, or simultaneous competition and cooperation, in the supply chain management literature has been treated as a dyadic relational phenomenon where the buyer's strategy is considered to be the primary driver. In this paper, we move beyond the dyadic view and propose a theory of co‐opetition in supply networks. We argue that as firms within a supply network interact over time to access, share, and transform resources, new ties between firms are formed and existing ties dissolve, giving rise to co‐opetition dynamics at the network level. Taking a configurational approach, we employ the inter‐related dimensions of ties between firm, firm‐level task, network‐level objective, and governance to specify four practical supply network archetypes that cover a wide range of economic activities. We then explain how coopetitive relationships may evolve in these supply network archetypes. Specifically, we discuss how relationships form or dissolve in these archetypes and how local structural changes lead to co‐opetition dynamics at the network level. We also discuss the implications of such dynamics from a managerial perspective.

The relationship between managing a production system to be safe and managing it to be operationally effective is often described in conflicting terms, creating confusion for research and practice. Some view improving safety as separate and distinct from increasing operational effectiveness; they are contradictory requirements. Others emphasize that safety and effectiveness are complementary, and combine to enhance competitiveness. Recent research proposes that this confusion can be explained by examining the operational and safety routines used in production. Specifically, when an organization chooses to manage safety and operations in a coordinated fashion using a joint management system, safety and operational effectiveness are complementary. Yet, the contradiction between safety and operations can occur when the functions are managed as separate and unequal silos. This research tests this supposition using the theory of relational coordination. The results, based on a combination of survey and archival safety data from 198 manufacturing firms, show that safety and operational outcomes are indirectly related via routines and that plants that manage safety and operations using a joint management system make these priorities complementary and do not create trade‐offs between safety and operational performance.