Supply chain collaboration (SCC) has been recognised as one of the most promising supply chain strategies and, increasingly, competition prevails between supply chains. Apart from its benefits -- reduction in inventory and lead time, unique capability, increased flexibility, greater satisfaction and increased profits -- it poses implementation challenges which include collaborative culture development, finding compatible partners, resolving conflicts, and continuously pushing the relationship towards desired goals. To address these problems, this study takes deeper insights from resource based view (RBV) and contingency theory, and gives a perspective to realising the potential of SCC. As SCC is a relationship oriented arrangement, culture plays a critical role in achieving success in SCC. This study highlights building collaborative culture through collaborative planning and continuous problem solving mechanisms, and these activities are mainly driven by market potential or partners’ compatibility. The collaborative planning is viewed as internal and external focussed functional areas. Using partial least squares (PLS) techniques, the model has been tested and various mediation effects have been identified. The study finds that building mechanisms for joint problem solving and measurement is important for culture development and making planning stages effective. The study also finds that joint planning at operation level is very important in culture development, and that this stage of planning is influenced by market oriented planning and market potential through market oriented planning. This study imparts understanding about building collaborative culture, interdependencies of planning stages, and problem solving roles which can make SCC a sustainable and long lasting partnership.
