Collaborative supplier-buyer networks and buyer’s innovation

Chiara D'Alise

Firms rely more and more on coordinated relationships with others to

implement value chain activities.

The paper explores the effects of firm’s network of vertical relationships on

innovation, in particular the relation between buyer’s innovation output and
supplier’s network of vertical ties (with other buyers and II tier suppliers). The
focus is on collaborative ties: voluntary supplier-buyer arrangements of co-
makership. The topic is at the confluence of two lines of research: Network
theory and Supplier Involvement in New Product Development. The paper is a
theoretical contribution because it extends and bridge them, drawing on gaps
present in both. Supplier involvement in NPD literature, dyadic in focus, has
ascribed conflicting effects on innovation to supplier’s firm-level characteristics
(e.g. technical capabilities) or to trust and commitment. The paper introduces
a wider focus and network-level characteristics for supplier selection.

Network theory scholars have not agreed on the structure most beneficial for
innovation. There is a trade off between closed network structure (Coleman)
favouring idea implementation and disconnected network structure (Burt),
favouring idea generation. Researches stressed the importance of structure
undervaluing other dimensions for knowledge sharing. The paper provides
insights about these aspects through a Contingent approach. The research
problem is: In presence of co-makership, are there any characteristics of the
supplier’s network of vertical ties that affect buyer’s innovation output?

I develop two main propositions regarding the effect of supplier’s network

structure (centrality and structural holes) in a collaborative context and five
propositions introducing variables of moderation. The supplier is a strategic
broker; two contingencies are introduced, one regarding brokered actors:
network content (knowledge heterogeneity); one regarding the broker:
supplier’s tertius iungens orientation (motivational disposition). A contribution
of the paper is to consider the active role played by each node in the network
instead of regarding nodes as passive conduits of information.

College, University, Industry Represented: LUISS Guido Carli, Department of

Economics and Business, Rome, Italy

Download copies of COINs 2009 research and industry papers at

ScienceDirect.
Link: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/issue/59087-2010-999979995-
2182758

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, Volume 2, Issue 4, The 1st

Collaborative Innovation Networks Conference - COINs2009. Edited by
Kenneth Riopelle, Peter Gloor, Christine Miller and Julia Gluesing.

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