Convergence of product, production, and supply chain design rules: Evidence from pharmaceutical pre-competitive collaboration networks

We address a trans-specialist learning and coordination question in pre-competitive manufacturing R&D networks: how do early-stage consortia develop products across ‘dissimilar’ (where knowledge requirements are different, and not solely based within) specialized networks? A unique aspect of the R&D consortia is that they integrate knowledge across product, production, and supply chain domains. This paper uses network ethnography as the methodology – in combining social network analysis with ethnographic methods – while drawing on a 10-year dataset on the evolution of pre-competitive collaboration networks in pharmaceutical continuous manufacturing deploying digital technologies. Our analysis reveals mechanisms through which design rules for products and processes are developed and converged across product, production, and supply chain domains. Specifically, we show that design rules, which are both ‘set-based’ and ‘trans-specialized’, are the key mechanisms that enable heterogeneous specialist stakeholders to exchange knowledge and facilitate the convergence of development efforts. Second, we highlight the roles of boundary spanners and institutional actors (i.e., academia and regulatory bodies) in steering dialogues towards the convergence of design rules in early-stage R&D settings. The theoretical implications of these findings are not only germane to pharmaceutical drug development networks, but to early-stage product and technology development networks at large.