Relationship Between Supplier Integration and Time-to-Market

Journal of Operations Management 31 (2013) 153–167

On the relationship between supplier integration and time-to-market
Johan Perols a,∗ , Carsten Zimmermann a,b,1 , Sebastian Kortmann c,2 a University of San Diego, School of Business Administration, 5998 Alcalá Park, San Diego, CA 92110, United States WHU–Otto Beisheim School of Management, Burgplatz 2, 56179 Vallendar, Germany c University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam Business School, Plantage Muidergracht 12, 1018 TV Amsterdam, The Netherlands b a r t i c l e

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a b s t r a c t
Recent operations management and innovation management research emphasizes the importance of supplier integration. However, the empirical results as to the relationship between supplier integration and time-to-market are ambivalent. To understand this important relationship, we incorporate two major recent developments. First, the literature has started to redefine supplier integration into two dimensions, supplier product integration and supplier process integration. Second, recent research has begun to examine spillover effects that extend beyond the direct costs and benefits of the supplier contract. Using survey data of 116 firms in the industrials, health care, and information technology industries, the results confirm our hypotheses and show that supplier product integration decelerates time-to-market while supplier process integration accelerates time-to-market. The results also show a positive relationship between supplier integration and the adoption of external technologies, which either decelerates or accelerates time-to-market depending on the level of internal exploration activities. Our research, thus, helps to open the ‘black-box’ of the relationship between supplier integration and time-to-market, and provides a theoretically grounded explanation to the apparent contradictory results in prior research about