Designing supplier networks in global product development

The ability to coordinate geographically dispersed supplier networks are vital for firms to successfully manage global product development (GPD). Whilst some interactions between suppliers during GPD have been observed to increase GPD performance, research effort has been primarily addressed to investigate buyer-supplier relationships. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the possible supplier network configurations in GPD and the contextual factors that influence the adoption of the different supplier network configurations. Based on the evidence from 17 case studies, a taxonomy of supplier network configurations in GPD, specified as supplier localisation and nature of the relationship between suppliers, has been empirically validated. Moreover, results reveal that collaboration between research and development units (R&D), modular product design and larger firm size help to establish cooperation between globally dispersed suppliers.