Managing partnership uncertainty for sustainable services: A conceptual model

Abstract

The paper presents the findings of a qualitative analysis that makes use of literature to determine the nature of uncertainties that characterises industrial collaborations for providing sustainable services. It aims to propose a conceptual model of partnership uncertainty management for sustainable services. The analysis finds that managing partnerships uncertainty for sustainable services requires foci that reflect governance structure and relationships climate priorities. These priorities are life-cycle control, resource governance, capability focus and integrative operations with regards to self uncertainty, participative decisions, intervention mechanisms, idea linkage, consumption patterns, communicative structure, clear representations and relationship incentivisation in terms of relationship /behavioural uncertainty, and creativity leveraging, environmental profiling, systemic measuring and process learning as they relate to partner uncertainty. The paper concludes by highlighting research limitations and potential future research directions. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2013.