Supply Network in New Product Development: Beyond the buyer-supplier relationship

Build on social network theory (SNT) and information processing theory (IPT), this paper investigates the coordination of inter-organizational relationships in supply networks during collaborative new product development (NPD) process. It studies the underlying coordination mechanism of supplier-supplier relationship in the buyer-supplier-supplier triad and explores the impact of product-related features on the coordination of supplier-supplier relationship. Empirical evidence from 16 cases supports the explanatory power of SNT and IPT in the realm of product co-development when multi-actors are involved. While this initial study considered limited variables, future research can enrich the framework with a wider set of theory constructs.