اثر یکپارچه سازی زنجیره تامین، تولید ماژولار، و فاصله فرهنگی بر توسعه محصول جدید : رویکرد قابلیت های پویا

Little research has examined how international firms' operations strategies affect dynamic capability creation or how cultural distance affects operations management. This study addresses these gaps by bridging the work on dynamic capabilities, two operations management techniques (product modularization and supplier integration) and cultural distance. Using a sample of 111 Brazilian automobile suppliers, the study finds that new product development is marginally increased by product modularization but decreased by supplier integration. Cultural distance negatively moderated these relationships. This research extends the dynamic capabilities literature and indicates that operations management strategy is an important part of the dynamic capability formation process.

The last 20 years has seen the growth of dynamic capabilities theory as increasingly important in the management literature. This theoretical perspective focuses on a firm's ability to respond to internal and external dynamism and Schumpeterian “creative destruction” through the creation of new sources of competitive advantage (Augier and Teece, 2007 and Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000). Rooted in the resource-based view of the firm, this strategic perspective posits that long-term, sustainable competitive advantage comes from the successful creation, extension, and/or protection of valuable, rare, inimitable, and non-substitutable resources (Teece, 2007). This ability to successfully navigate change is called a dynamic capability. Dynamic capabilities are posited to be particularly important for global firms that operate in the more volatile and dynamic international business environment (Griffith and Harvey, 2001, Luo, 2003 and Teece, 2007). Firms can possess many different kinds of dynamic capabilities. These include the ability to successfully complete mergers and acquisitions, the ability to manage knowledge, the creation of alliances, and the ability to develop new products (Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000). In the current work, we focus on the latter of these: new product development. New product development has been referred to in the literature as a prototypical dynamic capability (Winter, 2003) and is generally agreed upon as one of the essential dynamic capabilities a firm can possess (e.g., Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000, King and Tucci, 2002 and Verona and Ravasi, 2003). Past research from the dynamic capabilities perspective has investigated new product development (e.g., Verona and Ravasi, 2003). While many firms have a stated focus on new product development, this focus alone may not be sufficient for the generation of dynamic capabilities. As noted in Dosi et al. (2000), “dynamic capabilities cannot be built simply by spending on R & D or making analogous investments. On the contrary – and to an increasing extent as the competitive pace quickens – coordination between R & D and other functions, and often with suppliers or alliance partners, is of the essence” (p. 6). This study focuses on the effect of the coordination of firm functions, namely upstream and downstream supply chain links, on new product development. Global firms are part of a complex supply chain that requires coordinating the flow of goods, services and information efficiently (Mentzer, 2001). In addition, “due to demanding customers and competitive pressures, businesses today are restructuring themselves to operate on a global basis to take advantage of the international product, factor, and capital markets” (Manuj and Mentzer, 2008, pp. 133). Therefore, suppliers can be important allies in managing supply chain complexity. With these increasingly intricate global supply chains achieving superior performance through new product introductions can be challenging, but firms that collaborate with their suppliers on long term strategic issues may develop competitive capabilities. While many international firms search for external suppliers to collaborate in the development of new products (Ganesan et al., 2005 and Wind and Mahajan, 1997), interestingly, little research has examined the relationship between international firms' increasingly important operations management strategies and the creation of dynamic capabilities. This is in spite of the theoretical importance of firm structure for this process, (Augier and Teece, 2007), the importance of external integration in Teece et al. (1997) early writing on the topic, and the prominence given to supplier innovation in Teece's (2007) recent model of the foundations of dynamic capabilities. This study begins to fill this research gap by focusing on two such operations management strategies — supplier integration and product modularization3. As this paper investigates the relationship between operations management and dynamic capability creation in an international context, an important moderating variable is cultural distance. Cultural distance refers to the national-level value and behavioral differences between business actors, and it is posited that these differences increase the difficulties associated with international business activities (Johanson and Vahlne, 1977 and Zhang et al., 2003). As has been independently observed by Griffith and Myers (2005), the impact of cultural distance in the context of supply chain management has been almost completely unexplored (see, however, Elango, 2005 and Griffith and Myers, 2005 for examples of cultural distance being applied to supply chain management). This study explored the creation of this dynamic capability in a global context, namely the Brazilian automobile industry. Our focus on Brazil, one of the largest emerging markets in the world, serves to deepen the literature's understanding of the under-researched South American market, responding in part to a call for more research on this region (Hoskisson et al., 2000). Additionally, the Brazilian automobile industry has recently had a large number of new entrants (Zilbovicius et al., 2002) resulting in Brazil having the largest range of automobile brands being produced in a single country. Therefore, the Brazilian automobile industry offers the relevant environment for an investigation of the international business implications of the relationship between dynamic capabilities, operations management strategies, and cultural distance (Aulakh et al., 2000 and Kotabe et al., 2007). The paper is organized as follows. In the following section, we provide a theoretical model of dynamic capability creation, briefly outlined in Fig. 1, which is derived from our literature review. In this model, we link the supplier integration and product modularization literatures to the generation of dynamic capabilities, and, based on this discussion, we derive hypotheses. Count regression methods are then used to test these hypotheses with a sample of Brazilian automobile suppliers. This study makes two contributions to the existing literature. First, by applying an operations management perspective, this paper contributes to the dynamic capability discussion by underscoring the importance of international firms' operational structures in the creation of new products. Second, the international context allows us to highlight the moderating role that cultural distance plays in dynamic capability creation.

This study considered the influence of two operations management strategies – product modularization and supplier integration – on the formation of a prototypical dynamic capability, new product development. The core finding is that operational management strategies such as modular production and supplier integration are associated with the ability to create and introduce new products. Moreover, in the context of international management, our findings indicate that cultural distance is an important factor moderating the relationship between product modularization, supplier integration and the capability to develop new products. This research additionally extends the boundaries of the dynamic capabilities literature and provides evidence that operations management strategy is an important part of the dynamic capability formation process. It empirically supports Dosi et al.'s (2000) claim that “dynamic capabilities cannot be built simply by spending on R & D or making analogous investments. On the contrary – and to an increasing extent as the competitive pace quickens – coordination between R & D and other functions, and often with suppliers or alliance partners, is of the essence” (p. 6). It also empirically supports Teece's (2007) recent inclusion of supplier innovation as one of the foundations of dynamic capabilities. It provides preliminary evidence that operations management, through its ability to improve firm resource allocation, knowledge transfer, and flexibility, can influence the creation of dynamic capabilities. Our findings also indicate that in an international context cultural distance plays a significant role in the dynamic capability creation process. In both Models 2 and 3, cultural distance had a significant negative effect on new product development. This negative effect is explained by the negative effect of cultural distance on the knowledge transfer, resource flexibility, coordination and control necessary for successful new product development (Kogut and Singh, 1988, Lyles and Salk, 1996 and Uhlenbruck, 2004). Here, statistical confirmation of the negative effect of cultural distance on this important international business activity should lead to increased international managerial and academic attention to this construct in the supply chain management setting. The negative effect of supplier integration on new product development was surprising and contrary to predictions. There are some potential explanations for the findings. First, as the dynamic capability view of the firm is resource focused, it is possible that our findings are due to resource limits, instead of more efficient resource allocation. Dynamic capability formation involves continuous configuration of resource. Highly integrated suppliers, possessing a finite amount of resources, and spending many of these resources on supplier integration and supply chain sustainability, may have fewer resources available for the generation of dynamic capabilities. This may be especially true for the research-intensive new product development process and the international context. Additionally, highly integrated suppliers may have more of a captive supply chain relationship (Bensaou, 1999) due to the synchronization of activities with partner firms. In moderately dynamic industries (such as the automobile industry examined in this paper) the relatively lower level of environmental change may increase the relative stasis between upstream and downstream links, and, therefore, exacerbate the captive chain relationship effect. As such, this may foster an environment that may reduce the premium associated with innovation due to the need for the innovation to be synchronized with the entire supply chain. This increases the complexity of the new product development process as supply chains become more integrated. Table 1 shows that there is significant correlation between size (log sales volume) with supplier integration, product modularization, and cultural distance. Therefore, an alternative explanation may lie on the fact that the larger and more coordinated the supply chain, as it is the case of large corporations, the less innovative they will be, although they may be able to introduce innovations faster due to their large pool of resources such as capital, distribution capabilities, and brand recognition. Since our data set does not allow us to measure the innovativeness of new product introductions we need to recognize this limitation in our research. Future studies could have experts review and categorize new product introductions by major and minor introductions in order to assess the level of innovativeness8. It is also possible that the firms in our sample were not able to develop sufficient capabilities to better manage the complexities that arise from the current auto industry trends towards product innovation, lowering costs and developing new markets, which in turn increase supply chain complexities and rob firms of potential profits. Because of these trends, firms tend to add complexity by dispersing their supply chain and making supplier integration more complex. It is possible that within this sample firms have not yet prepared their supply chains for faster new product introductions. According to O'Grady (1999), firms can create value and improve performance even when facing increasingly complex supply chains. Future research should replicate this study with longitudinal data for a better understanding of this relationship between supplier integration and new product development, and how firms can create capabilities to manage complexity in their supply chains. Conversely, suppliers that do not have a captive audience for their products may be more susceptible to environmental change, and, therefore, may need to focus more on the generation of dynamic capabilities in order to attract customers and enhance profitability. Due to this, supplier integration may partially inhibit dynamic capability formation such as new product development. Cultural distance had a significant negative moderating effect on the negative relationship between supplier integration and new product development. This interaction effect may be rooted in cultural distance exacerbating already problematic firm resource limitations. Overcoming cultural distance's “liability of foreignness” requires resources (Olk, 1997 and Tihanyi et al., 2005) and, therefore, firms high on both cultural distance and supplier integration face far greater resource difficulties than firms low on both measures. Additionally, firms in relationships that are highly culturally distant will struggle with communication and control, and, therefore, will suffer from more captive audience troubles. Therefore, firms in highly culturally distant business relationships should consider how this might constrain their ability to change. Product modularization seems to be related with new product development. This positive direct effect may be rooted in increased firm flexibility, more efficient resource allocation, and the ability to transfer knowledge as a result of implementing a modular production strategy. These findings suggest that firms concerned with dynamic capability creation, specifically with new product development, may benefit from using modularity in their operations. On the other hand, the significant moderating effect of cultural distance on the relationship between product modularization and new product development capability adds insight this process. The interaction term indicates that culturally distant firms can mitigate the negative effect of cultural distance on new product development by adopting a product modularization strategy. That is, highly cultural distant firms that are high on product modularization generate greater numbers of new products than do their less modular counterparts. Product modularization's mitigating effect may be rooted in higher levels of involvement and codesign at earlier stages in the development process, and a reduction in the costs of managing tacit knowledge (Parente and Gu, 2005). Therefore, from an international strategy perspective, product modularization is an effective approach for attenuating the challenges associated with synchronizing operations with global partner firms that may otherwise hold less similar and reconcilable business practices and processes.