Structuring Supplier Involvement in New Product Development: A China–U.S. Study
研究了行政、任务和物理三种组织间结构如何影响中美两国新产品开发项目的绩效和买方学习，发现国家背景调节了这些结构的效果。
ABSTRACT Buying and supplying organizations rely on each other for developing better products in an efficient manner, which explains the popularity of involving suppliers in new product development (NPD). However, such involvement is not always successful, partially due to the challenges of structuring a buyer–supplier team to manage joint dependence and dependence asymmetry. This study adopts an organizational dependence view to examine how three types of intergroup structures—administrative (formalization and centralization), task (task interdependence), and physical (colocation)—influence project performance and buyer learning in NPD projects. Furthermore, adopting a contingency theory perspective, we study whether the national context moderates the effects of intergroup structures on project outcomes. We adopt a two‐group structural equation modeling approach to test hypotheses with survey responses from a sample of NPD projects in the United States (US) and China. Results show different ways in which intergroup structures influence project performance and buyer learning in the two culturally, economically, and institutionally distinct countries. We discuss the implications of these new findings and present directions for future research.