مشارکت تامین کننده و موفقیت توسعه محصول جدید رادیکال در سرمایه گذاری های جدید

Supplier involvement is essential to a new venture seeking to develop a radical innovation. Despite this, prior literature has not adequately addressed supplier involvement in radical innovation, nor what the antecedents to increased supplier involvement are. We build and test a conceptual model of the antecedents and new product performance outcomes of supplier involvement in the development of radical innovation by new ventures. Antecedent variables (supplier's specific investments and the new venture's qualification of the supplier's abilities) are drawn from the transaction cost analysis literature. We include new venture's relative power and new venture's level of commitment to the supplier as contingency conditions. We develop a set of hypotheses relating supplier involvement to radical innovation performance, relating the antecedent variables to supplier involvement, and also testing the interaction effects of the two contingency conditions. We gather data from both new ventures and their major suppliers for 173 recent radical innovation projects, and use hierarchical regression analysis to test our hypotheses. We find that the contingency conditions moderate achieved levels of supplier involvement, and also find a direct relationship between achieved level of involvement and performance. We conclude with theoretical contributions and managerial implications.

Increasingly, firms are turning to suppliers, researchers, and other partners to access product or technology innovations. Much recent literature has specifically examined the role of the supplier in new product development (e.g., Benton and Maloni, 2005, Chen et al., 2004, Handfield et al., 1999, Petersen et al., 2003, Petersen et al., 2005, Prahinski and Benton, 2004 and Ragatz et al., 1997), and studies of supplier involvement show that greater supplier involvement benefits the innovation (Afuah, 2000) or the manufacturer's financial performance (Carr and Pearson, 1999). Most of this existing literature on supplier involvement has focused on larger-scale manufacturers, but supplier involvement may however be even more important in the case of innovation by new ventures. New ventures are often started up with the express objective of commercializing an innovative new product (Lodish et al., 2001, pp. 1–2). Since they usually have only limited financial resources available, the entrepreneur founding the new venture must think virtually from the outset of marketing in two directions: upstream to potential investors (venture capitalists, incubators, corporate partners, or institutional investors) (Lodish et al., 2001, pp. 215–217) as well as downstream to potential buying firms and/or end users. “Entrepreneurial marketing” is the term sometimes given to upstream marketing to potential investors, and its role has been described as “[to] give potential investors a compelling argument to finance the venture… [to] ignite financers’ interest” (Buskirk and Lavik, 2004, p. 27). Increasingly, smaller firms are turning to suppliers as potential investors, who provide investment funding in return for a share of the business or the profits generated. When selecting from among potential suppliers, a new venture typically will qualify them in terms of their skills and abilities, select the best ones as potential partners, conduct “entrepreneurial marketing” as appropriate to get them interested and involved in the innovation, and encourage them to commit financial resources. Indeed, new ventures may be critically dependent on their suppliers for requisite capabilities, and even for their very survival in the marketplace. While some recent research has focused on the role of suppliers in radical innovation (Afuah and Bahram, 1995 and Afuah, 2000), relatively little research work has yet established the role of the supplier in the new venture's pursuit of radical innovation. The objective of this research is to better understand supplier involvement in radical innovation development by new ventures. While radical innovation is essential to new ventures, and supplier involvement is important for radical innovation, the literature has so far not adequately addressed either the question of supplier involvement in radical innovation, or the antecedents of supplier involvement. We propose a contingency model of supplier involvement in which we model the antecedents of supplier involvement as the specific investments of the supplier, and the new venture's qualification of the supplier's abilities. We also model the new venture's levels of power and commitment to the supplier as moderators of the links between involvement and its antecedents. We use the contingency model to answer the following research questions: (1) What are the effects on supplier involvement with the new venture of the supplier's specific investments and the new venture's qualification of supplier's abilities? (2) How can new ventures use relative power and commitment to the supplier to encourage greater levels of supplier involvement in their radical innovations? To answer these two important research questions, we develop several hypotheses. First, borrowing from transaction cost analysis (TCA) considerations, we investigate the extent to which supplier asset-specific investments and qualification of the supplier's abilities affect supplier involvement in a venture as main effect variables. Second, we study the contingency effects of the new venture's power and commitment to the supplier on each of these main effects. Finally, we study the direct effect of supplier involvement on the attained level of new product performance. The research is conducted at the project level in new ventures. To test our model empirically, we collect data on 173 radical innovation projects developed by 173 new ventures. Data were collected dyadically: we have 173 matched pairs of responses from new ventures and their major suppliers. All new ventures included in the study are recent (i.e., fewer than 5 years old) and small (fewer than 500 employees) at the time of the innovation project. We find that the new venture can successfully encourage the supplier to increase its involvement level, and we conclude with recommendations for managers of new ventures. To our knowledge, this is the first study examining the antecedents and consequences of supplier involvement in developing radical innovation in new ventures. We begin by reviewing the literature on radical innovation, supplier involvement, and new venture innovation, and by building a theoretical model and set of hypotheses based on the extant literature. We present our development of our study measures and our methodology and data collection. Finally, we obtain and discuss our results regarding the interrelationships among the variables in our model, and present implications for managers and for future research.

The main objective of this study was to develop and empirically test a contingency model of supplier involvement in the development of radical innovation by new ventures, and the performance outcomes of increased involvement. Hypotheses regarding the main antecedent effects, supplier's specific investments and qualification of abilities, were derived from TCA considerations. Our results expand the scope of current understanding of the antecedents and consequences of increased supplier involvement (e.g., Ragatz et al., 1997 and Handfield et al., 1999). Previous studies of involvement indicate the importance of these antecedent effects but left unexplored the effects of the contingency conditions. Our results are among the first to address these effects specifically in the case of new ventures that are, perhaps more than others due to their financial constraints, particularly dependent on attracting the right suppliers and depending on them for continued financial support. Our estimated coefficients demonstrate good empirical support for our hypotheses of main antecedent effects on supplier involvement, and the effect of supplier involvement on new product performance. Importantly, the results show unequivocal support for the hypothesis that greater supplier involvement is related to improved new product performance. The hypotheses about the contingency effects, however, produced some surprising results: while new venture's relative power had the expected positive contingency effect on supplier's specific investment, both relative power and commitment to the supplier had negative moderating effects on qualification of supplier's abilities. We outlined attribution theory and agency theory arguments that might at least partially explain the unexpected contingency findings. 7.1. Contributions to theory Our model builds on previous research of channel relationships in new product development to provide insights into the impact of channel relationship variables on involvement. In analyzing the main effects of specific investment and qualification of supplier's abilities on involvement, we employed transaction cost analysis (TCA), which suggests that specific investments lead to opportunism and thus hurt involvement (e.g., Anderson, 1985, Coleman, 1990 and Poppo and Zenger, 1996). We argue that since specific investments are of less value for alternative use, the investing party will be willing to remain in the relationship to maximize return of the investments (Heide and John, 1990). Therefore, involvement could be strengthened by the specific investments of the supplier. Our empirical data strongly supported our argument. One contribution concerns the significance of the contingency conditions. We discover that the contingency effects of the new venture's power over the supplier, and its level of commitment to the supplier, are both significant in certain cases. While TCA is useful in understanding supplier involvement, the contingency conditions, not accounted for in the simple TCA model, cannot be ignored. Our results help us to understand better the contingent nature of key interrelationships between the antecedent factors and involvement; it may be necessary to reexamine previously held, generalized beliefs about involvement in order to gain a more precise understanding of this phenomenon. 7.2. Implications for management The results have implications to new venture management. As noted in the introduction, the participation of suppliers is critical to the new ventures's growth and existence, particularly in the case of radical product development. Therefore, a logical objective for new venture managers is encouraging greater supplier involvement from the outset, so that both partners can benefit from the partnership. Our results suggest that the new venture should encourage suppliers to tailor their production system for the development of the radical innovation (see the measurement items for supplier's specific investment in Appendix A). The new venture–supplier relationship has certain unique features, as described earlier, and involvement is strengthened by the activities of both parties. High levels of specific investments by the supplier encourage the latter to stay involved in the relationship or risk losing most of the investment. Qualification of the supplier by the new venture assures the supplier of the importance of the relationship to the new venture and also encourages greater involvement. Hence, more thorough qualification is beneficial to both parties. The new venture gains by selecting suppliers more carefully, for both their abilities and skills and also for their willingness to make a sufficient financial investment. The supplier gains, since the fact that it was selected as the “best” partner by the new venture can be interpreted by the supplier as a signal of the new venture's seal of approval. Also, to increase supplier involvement, the new venture should make sufficient efforts to qualify and evaluate supplier's technical capabilities. Our results suggest that other activities by the new venture aimed at increasing supplier involvement have complex and possibly even negative effects on involvement. Considering the negative significant findings for H5 and H7, greater relative power was not found to have a main effect on involvement, and can negatively moderate the effect of qualification of supplier's abilities. In addition, new venture commitment to the supplier has a positive main effect, but may moderate the effect of qualification of supplier's abilities. While further research is required here, our results suggest that the new venture should deemphasize its relative power and commitment in order to enhance the positive relationship between qualification and involvement. 7.3. Limitations and future research The results in this study should be viewed in light of some limitations. First, our research was conducted from the perspective of the new venture's new product process rather than a general channel relationship. Klein et al. (1978) found that specific investments are of lesser value in alternative use, and partners have incentives to make opportunistic behaviors, such as postcontractual bargaining or threats of termination, thus specific investments have negative effects on involvement. Our study, however, supports the opposite. Since specific investments are less valuable outside the relationship, both supplier and new venture may have incentives to maintain the relationship and maximize the returns from the investments. The unexpected direction of some of the significant relationships raises an interesting issue for future research. In a related observation, it is possible that the lack of a relationship between commitment and supplier involvement may have been due to the fact that commitment was only measured from the new venture's perspective. Possibly, if the supplier perceives the new venture to be committed, they may become more involved. A future study, capturing more completely all perceptions of both parties, might provide insight on this and related issues.1 Second, our research concentrates only on two dimensions of the new venture–supplier relationship, specific investments and qualification of supplier's abilities. We do not include any measures of expectations of continuity (Heide and John, 1990), attractiveness of product line (Anderson, 1985), bureaucratic structure (John, 1984), monitoring (Stump and Heide, 1996), or other variables that might affect supplier involvement. An extension of our model would include some of these variables. Additional perspectives may be gained by disaggregating the involvement of suppliers throughout the new venture's innovation process. Different kinds of uncertainties and issues arise in the three stages (design, testing, and commercialization). Possibly, the supplier's technical capabilities may be more influential at the design stages, while its production capabilities may map more onto the commercialization stage. Other differences may emerge as well. For example, specific investment measures may have a greater impact on commercialization than on design, particularly if the investment is primarily downstream in the innovation process. Qualification of technical capabilities may be positively associated with product design involvement, whereas qualification of production process capabilities may be more associated with commercialization. These research directions would deepen our understanding of the specific role of the supplier in the new venture's radical innovation process and help the new venture select the best suppliers. We could also extend the study to include incremental as well as radical new product projects undertaken by new ventures, to determine if supplier involvement is as critical in this case, or if the antecedents to supplier involvement are different. In addition, if the study were undertaken for incremental innovations conducted by larger organizations, other antecedents may need to be added to the model. Also, in the case of large organizations, it is possible that specific investments are an outcome of involvement rather than an antecedent, since the organization may have prior involvements with the suppliers. For our study, however, we examine new companies involved in radical innovation, which lack prior business involvement with suppliers. Hence, qualification of abilities and commitments of specific investments have to come first. (These observations were confirmed during our field research.) We leave open, as a question for further research, the study of a more complex model representing the relationships between supplier involvement, qualification of supplier ability, and specific investments.2 Generally speaking, while our research provides a theoretical and empirical insight into the mechanism of supplier involvement in the radical innovation process, the theory is still significantly underdeveloped. Given the important role played by new ventures in driving radical innovation, further research needs to be done to develop a more complete theory of channel relationships and obtaining supplier involvement.