Defining Archetypes of E-Collaboration for Product Development in The Automotive Industry

The automotive industry represents one of the most relevant industrial sectors of the global economy. In response to a plethora of challenges, e-collaboration for product development has become a nexus of competitive advantage in the automotive world. Since new dynamics in organizational forms on the one hand and advancements in engineering information systems on the other hand have led to increased complexity, a classification model to organize and structure the manifold manifestations seems analytically useful. Hence, the paper at hand (1) proposes, (2) describes, and (3) validates archetypes of e-collaboration for product development in the automotive industry. Anchored in (1) a structured literature review and (2) rich empirical evidence from a multiple-case study in the automotive ecosystem, we organize our research study along a well-established, two-stage research method on archetypes adopting a socio-technical systems perspective. Key findings include the archetypes (1) mechanical development-dominant, (2) software development-dominant, (3) systems engineering-oriented, and (4) non-development-focused e-collaborations for product development as basic patterns. Thereby, “importance of mechanical development” and “importance of software development” act as essential classification dimensions. Keeping the inherent limitations of the qualitative research tradition in mind, this paper offers theoretical, methodological, managerial, and cross-disciplinary contributions.