Prior work has focused on the relationships between buyers and individual suppliers. However, many technological products are made up of a number of subcomponents whose completion requires coordinated efforts from different activity suppliers. Ours is one of the first papers to examine the selecting of a team of subcomponent suppliers as a function of each supplier’s individual characteristics and the experience the suppliers have in working with each other. Abstract and download

Topics: Buyer-supplier relationship, TCE, Teams, Technological capabilities, Problem solving view

We extend the existing literature on firms’ responses to disruptive technologies by examining how the length and number of an incumbant’s ties to suppliers affect the probability of it adopting a new technology. Uniquely, we bring together the inter- and intra-organizational views of technology adoption. Abstract and download

Topics: Pre-entry experience, Technology management, Networks, Buyer-supplier relationship

Japanese notebook computer manufacturers outsource less than their U.S. counterparts, while Japanese automakers outsource far more that U.S. manufacturers. Treating national institutions as “shift parameters” can explain cross-national differences, but not such cross-industry differences in the effect of the same institutions. This paper’s findings emphasizes that institutions have not only a direct, positive impact on certain governance arrangements, but also an indirect, negative effect on alternative governance arrangements by suppressing the development of the necessary practices and institutions. Abstract and download

The logit and probit models are critical parts of the management scholar’s analytical arsenal. We often want to know if a covariate has the same effect for different groups, e.g., men and women. Unfortunately, making this comparison is much more challenging than many researchers realize. This paper demonstrates the potential for misinterpretation and proposes and tests two alternative means of comparing coefficients across groups.
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Topics: Logit, Methodology

Almost every business network exists in the context of a larger population of similar organizations, but research has not produced a clear understanding of how similar firms outside a focal network influence the performance of network members. In this paper, we derive a theoretical distinction between inter- and extra-network firms and demonstrate empirically that the impact of extra-network firms varies inversely with the relationship-specificity of network ties. Abstract and download

Topics: Networks, Buyer-supplier relationship, Structural autonomy