Title: Examining the roles of buyer knowledge protectiveness and supplier absorptive capacity in joint new product development

Authors: Sunil Hwang; Seong-Jong Joo; Hokey Min; John M. Dickens

Addresses: Korea Maritime Institute, Policy Research Center, Busan, South Korea ' Department of Operational Sciences, Air Force Institute of Technology, 2950 Hobson Way, WPAFB, OH 45433, USA ' Department of Management, Allen and Carol Schmidthorst College of Business, Bowling Green State University, Maurer Center 312, Bowling Green, Ohio 43403, USA ' Department of Operational Sciences, Air Force Institute of Technology 2950 Hobson Way, WPAFB, OH 45433, USA

Abstract: Despite numerous merits of joint new product development (NPD), a buying firm's fear of losing its proprietary knowledge and its reluctance to share the intellectual capital with its supplier may undermine an NPD effort. In addition, the buyer's engineering change orders against dynamic demands can influence NPD performances. With that in mind, this paper aims to identify important influencing factors for the NPD success through the empirical analysis of Korean firms. The major findings of this study are twofold. First, supplier absorptive capacity has a positive effect on NPD performances. Second, when the buyer's knowledge protectiveness is strong, supplier absorptive capacity negatively affects NPD performances. These results indicate that the buyer's knowledge protection policy plays a key role in the successful implementation of NPD. Finally, the buyer's willingness to share information and knowledge with the supplier is critical for the success of NPD with the buyer's backward knowledge transfer.

Keywords: joint new product development; supplier absorptive capacity; buyer knowledge protectiveness; earlier supplier involvement; hierarchical regression; confirmatory factor analysis.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSOM.2023.134264

International Journal of Services and Operations Management, 2023 Vol.46 No.2, pp.209 - 231

Received: 25 Feb 2021
Accepted: 03 Jun 2021
Published online: 17 Oct 2023 *

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