In this study we unbundle the concept of collaboration by positing that there are two types of collaborations in buyer-supplier relationships, namely strategic and operational. Using blended theoretical arguments, we argue that strategic and operational collaborations are driven by the buyers’ dependency factor or the extent to which buyers are dependent on suppliers’ critical resources and/or goal congruence between buyers and suppliers. We tested our hypotheses based on data drawn from 204 manufacturing firms in Australia. The results show that buyers’ dependency factor is positively related to both strategic and operational collaborations, while goal congruence is positively associated with strategic collaboration but not with operational collaborations. The result also shows that strategic collaboration is positively related to operational collaboration.