The Bright Side and Dark Side of Embedded Ties in Business-to-Business Innovation

Although the number and importance of joint innovation projects between suppliers and their customers continue to rise, the literature has yet to resolve a key question: Do embedded ties with customers help or hurt supplier innovation? Drawing on both the tie strength and knowledge literatures, the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of marketing 2011-09, Vol.75 (5), p.34-52
Main Authors: Noordhoff, Corine S., Kyriakopoulos, Kyriakos, Moorman, Christine, Pauwels, Pieter, Dellaert, Benedict G.C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Business innovation
Business structures
Business to business
Business to business commerce
Formalization
Innovations
Knowledge management
Marketing
Marketing strategies
Opportunistic behavior
Product development
Product innovation
Studies
Suppliers
Technological innovation
Vendor supplier relations
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Summary:Although the number and importance of joint innovation projects between suppliers and their customers continue to rise, the literature has yet to resolve a key question: Do embedded ties with customers help or hurt supplier innovation? Drawing on both the tie strength and knowledge literatures, the authors theorize that embedded ties interact with supplier and customer innovation knowledge to influence supplier innovation. In a sample of 157 Dutch business-to-business innovation relationships, they observe that embedded ties weaken how much suppliers benefit from customer innovation knowledge because of worries about customer opportunism (the dark side of embedded ties). However, they uncover three moderating relationship and governance features that allow suppliers to overcome these dark-side effects and even increase innovation (the bright side of embedded ties). Finally, although the authors predicted a bright-side effect, they find that embedded ties neither help nor hinder the supplier to leverage its own innovation knowledge in the relationship.
ISSN:0022-2429
1547-7185
DOI:10.1509/jmkg.75.5.34