**3. The basics of typification**

A typification can basically be regarded as a process of aggregation and abstraction, which describes, structures and eventually reduces the complexity of an issue to essential aspects, via the definition types. Numerous projects from research and practice have proven the method of typification to be a suitable tool for the structuring of complex organizational situations, which include a variety of different business forms (Grosse-Oetringhaus, 1974; Büdenbender, 1991; Diemer, 1992). In this context, a type represents a number of objects with a common set of features and attributes. A conceptual and structural basis for the creation of types is typically provided by morphological schemes, also called morphologies. Morphologies are usually matrices, which visualize the set of features and their respective attributes characterizing a certain type (cf. Figure 2). A fictive "type 1" could for instance be characterized by the combination of the attributes highlighted in grey (A2, B1, C2, D2) whereas a fictive "type 2" could be described by the attributes highlighted in green (A3, B2, C3, D3).


Fig. 2. Structure of a morphological scheme

The respective choice of features within a morphology highly depends on the requirements of the desired analysis. Since the creation of types is therefore always subject to a specific

Configuration Logic of Standard Business

Fig. 3. Product/service morphology

information about when this interaction is taking place.

1988).

Processes for Inter-Company Order Management 651

The feature complexity refers to the design-based, structural characteristics of the product or service exchanged between the producer and the supplier (Scherer, 1991; Schomburg, 1980; Wildemann, 2000). The complexity of a product or service thus affects the producersupplier-interaction in a similar way as the level of individualization and the level of specification. Moreover, complex products or services often require a rather frequent interaction of the producer and the supplier throughout the entire order execution. That is due to their typically high importance to the overall system ordered by the customer and the corresponding necessity of distinctive monitoring & controlling procedures (Rotering, 1993). The feature changes to the specifications refers to the frequency and the initiator of the changes applied to the specifications of a product or service exchanged between the producer and a supplier. In particular frequent changes to the specifications of a product or service can, depending on the level of individualization, specification and the complexity of a product, result in considerable extra-efforts of coordination and thus in an increase of the intensity as well as the frequency of the producer-supplier-interaction. This is due to the necessity of repeating processes that have already been started or were even completed. The feature changes to the specifications therefore indicates how intense the producer-supplierinteraction is in the course of the inter-company order execution but provides little

The feature substitutability of the supplier includes if and to which extent a specific supplier can be substituted in the context of a specific project (Eberle, 2005; Scherer 1991; Schuh et al. 2006). The higher the level of individualization and the higher the complexity of a product or service, the less suppliers are typically capable of providing it (Arnold, 2004; Homburg, 1995; Schwerk, 2000). Whereas the substitution of suppliers is therefore often not possible or at least quite difficult as far as highly individualized and complex products or services are concerned, the substitution of suppliers is rather uncomplicated as far as standard products or services are concerned. The feature influence on the substitution represents the producer´s influence on the substitution of a supplier (Arnold, 2004; Eberle, 2005; Kraljic,

purpose, no universally valid types can usually be derived. A derived type is in fact rather linked to the particular interest of the observer and has to comply with his goals and problems (Förster, 1988).
