Purpose – This study aims to examine how coercive, legitimate, expert, referent and reward power shape compliance, satisfaction and collaboration in innovation-intensive semiconductor B2B dyads. The authors map bilateral power-pairings and develop a dyadic power-pairing viability (DPPV) framework explaining which pairings persist without sustained satisfaction loss and why others do not.

Design/methodology/approach – This study used qualitative multiple-case study of 22 Dutch customer–supplier dyads. The authors code each side’s use of the five power bases, derive pairings, link them to outcomes and use cross-case pattern matching and negative-case analysis to elaborate DPPV and derive testable propositions. 

Findings – Only 9/25 theoretical pairings appear; the dominant configuration is {Customer-Legitimate, Supplier-Expert}. Coercive buys short-term compliance but depresses satisfaction. Expert and referent underpin durable collaboration when aligned to partner needs. Legitimate coordinates under clear roles. Reward works when value and fairness are credible. Viability is shaped by IP risk, time-to-market pressure and capability asymmetries.

Research limitations/implications – Single sector, The Netherlands; qualitative design limits generalizability. Future work should test DPPV quantitatively/longitudinally, probe boundary conditions across sectors/cultures and model dynamic switching between pairings under shocks.

Practical implications – This study avoids prolonged coercive use, aligns expert/referent to the locus of capability, uses legitimate with explicit roles/decision rights, applies reward with transparent value sharing, combines bases across the dyad (e.g. {Customer-Legitimate, Supplier-Expert}) and mitigates IP exposure, speed pressures and asymmetries.

Originality/value – This study introduces a dyadic, configuration-level view of power (DPPV) that explains observed vs absent power-pairings, links them to compliance-satisfaction trade-offs and tailors power use to semiconductor contexts, extending power-base theory to high-tech B2B governance.

This study examines the power dynamics and their impact on involvement levels and compromise complexities in B2B joint decision-making within Dutch high-tech firms. Using a five-phase framework, it investigates the asymmetrical participation of co-owning decision-makers in dyadic buyer-supplier relationships and presents a conceptual model to explain how different power sources influence business interactions. A qualitative multiple case study involving Dutch high-tech firms was conducted. The research reveals that power bases significantly determine both involvement levels and the complexities of compromises, showing a positive correlation between involvement and compromise complexity. This study provides guidance for B2B stakeholders, offering diagnostic tools for understanding power structures and strategies to enhance collaborative decision-making. Additionally, the paper recommends governance frameworks and role delineations to improve participation levels, especially for companies with less power. This scholarly work enriches the literature by clarifying the relationship between power bases, involvement levels, and compromise complexities, and extends the application of social power theory to high-tech B2B contexts.

Joint decision-making is one of the coordination mechanisms to address the inherent complexity of business-to-business (B2B) processes within a supply chain. Joint decision-making can be helpful to define shared goals and objectives, identify supply chain failures and opportunities, and consolidate supply chain success. Parties may benefit directly from a partnership's potential and synergies by collaboratively making decisions. However, specific business conditions need to be in place to enable joint decision-making. This paper investigates how companies in a dyadic relationship arrive at joint and individual supply chain decision-making structure. We examine the drivers, facilitators, and barriers of making joint as well as individual decisions within the supplier-buyer dyad and frame our arguments borrowing perspectives from resource dependency theory, transaction cost economics, collaboration theory, and social exchange theory. The paper presents a case study of Dutch high-tech companies, analysing experiences of supply chain managers via semi-structured interviews. High-tech firms often collaborate and share supply chain decisions due to the high-value capital equipment as well as a shared dependency on highly specific scarce resources. Our study provides new empirical insight into how firms cope with conflicting drivers, facilitators, and barriers in collaborations, controlling their decision-making structure. From the case study, we identify the combinations of facilitators and drivers that tend to promote the existence of joint decisions. We conclude with providing a list of suggestions for decision-makers and future research.