Explaining Changes in Supplier Involvement in Complex New Product Development: A Resource Orchestration Perspective

The purpose of this article is to explain the forces that change supplier involvement aimed at developing complex new product generations over a period of time longer of about 15 years. Using innovation and supply chain management literature on buyer–supplier relationships and alliances, we describe the theoretical background of supplier involvement and changes therein. Results from exploratory cases show that a different pattern of factors drives firms to decrease the level of supplier involvement across consecutive generations of complex new products compared to an increase in the level of supplier involvement. Taking a research orchestration perspective on consecutive new complex product development projects and depending on the starting conditions, firms may not only aim at getting complementary technological resource access enabled by pioneering relationship capabilities in order to shift from Whitebox to Blackbox supplier involvement. They may also aim at technology enrichment bundling processes that require divesting complementary resource access in order to shift from Blackbox to Whitebox supplier involvement. By accounting for changes through time across generations of new products, this article contributes to the literature on supplier involvement in new product development that investigates the drivers of changes in supplier involvement in new product development and their interplay.