Innovation in supply networks—A research framework and roadmap

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🔬研究者:サプライチェーンにおけるイノベーション研究のフレームワークと今後の研究課題を提供。

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Innovation in the products and services offered by a firm does not originate exclusively from activities executed within the boundaries of the firm. Firms are embedded within networks of customers and suppliers (i.e., supply networks) with which they exchange products, services, data, and information. All these exchanges are potential vectors of innovation. Supply network actors do not just supplement internal innovation efforts. In fact, the stock of knowledge that a firm can indirectly access through its network is often comparable to or even exceeds internally available resources, because any single firm usually has many suppliers. To illustrate this fact with respect to a firm's suppliers, for example, consider the research and development (R&D) statistics from some of largest publicly traded firms in the US, Japan, and Europe in the Defense, Automotive, Electronics, Consumer and Packaged Goods (CPG), and Industrial Equipment industries (see Table 1, Data source: Factset and Compustat). As seen in Table 1, in the period spanning fiscal years 2015–2018, the average research and development (R&D) intensity (and cumulative average dollars invested in R&D) of first-tier suppliers is higher than, or at least comparable with, the R&D expenditure of the focal firm, both within and across industries. For example, within Defense sector firms, the ratio of average R&D intensity (cumulative R&D dollars) of first-tier suppliers to that of the focal firm varies from 0.98 to 19.63 (6.90 to 43.00); within the Automotive sector, it varies from 0.60 to 1.40 (3.60 to 18.44). Similar patterns are also observed in the Electronics, Industrial equipment, and CPG sectors. Hewlett Packard, for example, has an average first-tier supplier R&D intensity of 3.27 times its own, and the cumulative R&D of its first-tier suppliers is 54.60 times its own spending. Similarly, General Electric (GE) had first-tier suppliers with an R&D intensity about 62 times its own, while the first-tier suppliers collectively spent 7.30 times the total R&D dollars that GE spent. These examples illustrate the (1) suppliers R&D investment tend to be greater or equal than the investment of their customers, at least for very large publicly traded companies and that (2) the potential to leverage supplier R&D investments varies greatly within a given industry and across industries. Leading corporations in different industries actively acknowledge and promote supplier-driven innovation. In the CPG industry, for instance, Unilever noted: “Around 70% of our innovations are linked to working with our strategic suppliers.” To this end, through its “partners to win” program launched in 2011, Unilever invested in mutually beneficial relationships with key suppliers to “share capabilities and co-innovate” (Trebilcock, 2014). Similarly, as Procter & Gamble (P&G) engaged in innovation activities with its top 15 suppliers—who feature a combined R&D staff of 50,000—the firm saw a 30% increase in the number of innovation projects with joint staffing between P&G and supplier researchers (Larry & Sakkab, 2006). In the case of Toyota's R&D centers for individual platforms, collaboration with suppliers for innovation is institutionalized. Selected suppliers embedded personnel in the R&D center's operations (Wyman, 2015). Technology firms that invest vast resources in innovation have also embraced this practice. For example, Cisco (Gassmann, 2006) and Google (Remneland-Wikhamn, Ljungberg, Bergquist, & Kuschel, 2011) have heavily leveraged supplier partnerships to enhance the pace of their innovations. Overall, these examples emphasize the importance of the supplier network in the current context. Rao (2018) state that as much as 55–65% of innovation is driven by suppliers. This special issue offers a unique opportunity to take stock of the multiple streams of research that investigate innovation in supply networks and to sketch out new avenues for research. In this introductory article, we first discuss the impetus for investigating innovations in supply networks and offer a brief overview of past research that relates to this topic. Next, we develop a framework that, while integrating past research results, pinpoints numerous opportunities for future research on innovation in supply networks. While doing so, we discuss how the papers that are a part of this special issue fit within the proposed framework. That supply networks play a role in innovation processes and outcomes is not a novel idea. However, we expect that research efforts in this area will continue to multiply under the combined pressure of economic and societal forces, as well as methodological and data advances. From an economic and societal perspective, fragmentation and globalization of supply chains is a key factor driving the need for more supply network research (Hummels, Ishii, & Yi, 2001). Vertical disintegration of supply chains is a global phenomenon that is evidenced across industries as different as footwear, machinery, communication equipment, computer and peripherals, electronic instruments, ship and boat manufacturing, and banking, to just name a few (Jacobides, 2005; Lechner, Lorenzoni, & Tundis, 2016). As previously integrated production processes become split among sets of specialized firms, innovation activities that are embedded within organizational hierarchies are divided and recombined across different network actors. Innovation activities are also increasingly spread across many geographic locations due to the globalization of supply chains (Timmer, Erumban, Los, Stehrer, & De Vries, 2014). Industries such as electronics (Ernst, 2003), and semiconductors (Macher, Mowery, & Simcoe, 2002), are cases in point for the impact of globalization and the consequent innovative capacities within these industries. For example, while Apple Inc.—the firm that controls and orchestrates the iPhone network—is headquartered in the United States, many countries add value, including China ($8.46), Japan ($67.70), United States ($68.69), Taiwan ($47.84), and Korea ($16.40) (estimated values for iPhone 7 based on Dedrick, Linden, and Kraemer (2018)). Similarly, manufacturing locations can also be specialized. For example, the Nokia 1200 phone had a wide dispersion of specialized activities across several locations. While software platform and user interface design were primarily focused in Denmark, product test design, mechanical component manufacturing, and subassemblies were distributed across India and China. Finally, manufacturing was distributed across China, India, Romania, Hungary, Mexico, and South Korea (Larsen, Seppälä, & Ali-Yrkkö, 2018). Finally, in addition to dispersion of focal products, in several high-tech industries such as semiconductors, complementary investments such as tooling make it easier for suppliers and downstream organizations to copy innovations rapidly (Shih, 2018). These abilities accelerate the dispersion of innovations across geographies, making suppliers of both primary value chain products and complementary tooling for these products important within supply networks. Overall, these trends for disintegration and globalization observed in most industries suggest that the locus of innovation is moving towards supply networks. Given this shift, characteristics of supply networks such as their structure or their coordination and control mechanisms will have a bearing on the way innovation activities are executed, as well as on their outcomes. For instance, actors in different geographic areas that have different cultural traditions, political priorities, or academic institutions can have a subtle yet substantial impact on innovation processes. Managing the environmental impact of global supply networks is another factor creating an impetus for innovation. These impacts can differ by the nature of suppliers (Villena & Gioia, 2018). Large firms in many industries (3M, BASF, Ford Motor Company, Ikea, Lenovo, PepsiCo, Quanta Shanghai Manufacturing, etc.) are testing measures to comply with the Scope 3 Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Value Chain Standard (Knight & Jackson, 2011). This standard aims to reduce all indirect emissions that occur in the value chain of the reporting company, including both upstream and downstream emissions. A McKinsey report indicates that CPG companies will need to reduce their emissions by more than 90% before 2050 to comply with the Paris Accord while maintaining their yearly growth of 5.3% per year (Bové & Swartz, 2016). Working with suppliers to achieve this is critical. Despite being the primary producer of the iPhone, Apple Inc. facilities account for only 2% of CO2 emissions associated with its manufacture and distribution (Apple Inc, 2016). To reduce its carbon footprint, Apple must engage in product and process innovation efforts with its supply network partners with respect to sustainability. Similarly, LEGO attributed 75% of its greenhouse gas emissions to its suppliers (Lego Group, 2014), and Wal-Mart attributed over 90% (Rosen, 2016). 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• openalex https://doi.org/10.1002/joom.1122first seen 2026-08-02 16:46:02