Technological supplier integration and product innovation outcomes: moderation effect of technology uncertainty

Organizations can no longer rely solely on their own resources to innovate and therefore look for strategicinteractions outside their organizational boundaries. Therefore, companies are encouraged to establish cooperationrelationship with external actors, such as customers and suppliers, access to new technologies. This researchexamines technological supplier integration in product innovation process. A model is proposed and tested using asample of 75 Iranian car components manufacturers. Data are analyzed through the use of linear structural relations.Results confirm that car components manufacturers are likely to perform product innovation tasks that are related tofirms core competencies in-house. They also tend to externalize complex tasks to suppliers in order to increaseproduct development speed. The supplier integration influences the time to market. However, it is more effective onspeed to market when technology uncertainty is low than when technology uncertainty is high.

Keywords:

Supplier integration , product innovation , inter-organizational relationship , technological uncertainty , modularity