The management of suppliers' innovative activities.

This dissertation develops and tests a model for the management of suppliers' innovative activities. The model consists of seven theoretical constructs--four derived from the supplier's competitive environment and three pertaining to the buyer-supplier relationship. The synthesis of the theoretical model leads to one major hypothesis and two minor hypotheses. The major hypothesis is that the dependence of the supplier on a buyer-supplier relationship plays a major role in determining the relative importance of clarity of innovative objectives and commitment to innovation within a buyer-supplier relationship. The minor hypotheses are that clarity of innovative objectives is more important when dealing with a highly dependent supplier and commitment to innovation is more important when dealing with a supplier that has a low dependence on the relationship. The constructs are measured using a set of fifteen indicators. These indicators are operationalized and a questionnaire is administered to 173 executives from 113 automotive supplier companies. The theoretical model is tested with this data. The model has a satisfactory goodness of fit. The data analysis provides partial support for the hypotheses tested. The results suggest the need for improving the quality of the measures used. An examination of the implications of this study reveals major organizational obstacles to the effective management of suppliers' innovative activities.PhDBusiness administrationUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/161929/1/8821592.pd