Strategic embeddedness of modularity in alliances: Innovation and performance implications

This paper examines modular product structures in alliances. Results from a survey of 225 alliances show that modular product structures within alliances affect alliance firms' competitive performance. Product innovation performance, assessed as both speed to market and radical innovations and contingent on the employed innovation strategy, partially mediates this effect. Modular product structures exert curvilinear effects on product innovation performance and linear effects on competitive performance. Although the interaction of modular product structures with an innovation strategy increases product innovation performance, this contingency also reduces the positive effect of the innovation strategy on competitive performance.

[1]  Siegfried P. Gudergan,et al.  Strategic implications for (non-equity) alliance performance , 2012 .

[2]  Marko Sarstedt,et al.  An assessment of the use of partial least squares structural equation modeling in marketing research , 2012 .

[3]  Cornelia Dröge,et al.  The effects of product modularity on competitive performance: Do integration strategies mediate the relationship? , 2007 .

[4]  S. Park,et al.  Interfirm Rivalry and Managerial Complexity: A Conceptual Framework of Alliance Failure , 2001 .

[5]  T. Das,et al.  Partner Misbehaviour in Strategic Alliances: Guidelines for Effective Deterrence , 2001 .

[6]  R. Grant,et al.  A Knowledge Accessing Theory of Strategic Alliances , 2004 .

[7]  Kathleen M. Eisenhardt,et al.  Architectural Innovation and Modular Corporate Forms , 2001 .

[8]  Kim B. Clark,et al.  Architectural Innovation: The Reconfiguration of Existing Product Technologies and the Failure of , 1990 .

[9]  J. Nunnally.  Psychometric Theory (2nd ed), New York: McGraw-Hill. , 1978 .

[10]  Carliss Y. Baldwin,et al.  Where do transactions come from? Modularity, transactions, and the boundaries of firms , 2007 .

[11]  Siegfried P. Gudergan,et al.  Learning and knowledge development in alliances , 2006 .

[12]  J. Farley,et al.  Corporate Culture, Customer Orientation, and Innovativeness in Japanese Firms: A Quadrad Analysis , 1993 .

[13]  X. Song,et al.  Innovation Strategy and Sanctioned Conflict: A New Edge in Innovation? , 1998 .

[14]  Sascha Kraus,et al.  Innovation in knowledge-intensive industries: The double-edged sword of coopetition , 2013 .

[15]  Ron Sanchez,et al.  Modularity, flexibility, and knowledge management in product and organization design , 1996 .

[16]  Esther P. Y. Tang,et al.  Effects of supplier and customer integration on product innovation and performance: Empirical evidence in Hong Kong manufacturers , 2010 .

[17]  G. O'Connor,et al.  Managing radical innovation: an overview of emergent strategy issues , 2002 .

[18]  Blake Ives,et al.  The Global Network Organization of the Future: Information Management Opportunities and Challenges , 1994, J. Manag. Inf. Syst..

[19]  C. Moorman,et al.  The Acquisition and Utilization of Information in New Product Alliances: A Strength-of-Ties Perspective , 2001 .

[20]  I. Chen,et al.  Towards a theory of supply chain management: the constructs and measurements , 2004 .

[21]  Adegoke Oke,et al.  Innovation Strategy, Human Resource Policy, and Firms' Revenue Growth: The Roles of Environmental Uncertainty and Innovation Performance , 2012, Decis. Sci..

[22]  R. Sanchez.  Strategic flexibility in product competition , 1995 .

[23]  Chih-Chiang Chen,et al.  Knowledge sharing, absorptive capacity, and innovation capability: an empirical study of Taiwan's knowledge-intensive industries , 2007, J. Inf. Sci..

[24]  Min Zhang,et al.  The impact of trust and contract on innovation performance: The moderating role of environmental uncertainty , 2011 .

[25]  Marko Sarstedt,et al.  PLS-SEM: Indeed a Silver Bullet , 2011 .

[26]  D. Teece.  Explicating dynamic capabilities: the nature and microfoundations of (sustainable) enterprise performance , 2007 .

[27]  Melissa A. Schilling.  Toward a General Modular Systems Theory and Its Application to Interfirm Product Modularity , 2000 .

[28]  Juliana H. Mikkola,et al.  Capturing the Degree of Modularity Embedded in Product Architectures , 2006 .

[29]  W. Reinartz,et al.  An Empirical Comparison of the Efficacy of Covariance-Based and Variance-Based SEM , 2009 .

[30]  T. C. Powell.  Organizational alignment as competitive advantage , 1992 .

[31]  Wynne W. Chin,et al.  A Comparison of Approaches for the Analysis of Interaction Effects Between Latent Variables Using Partial Least Squares Path Modeling , 2010 .

[32]  Peter Galvin,et al.  Product modularity, information structures and the diffusion of innovation , 1999 .

[33]  Gerhard O. Mensch,et al.  Improving the Strategy‐Innovation Link , 1985 .

[34]  D. Campbell.  The Informant in Quantitative Research , 1955, American Journal of Sociology.

[35]  R. Garud,et al.  Technological and Organizational Designs for Realizing Economies of Substitution , 1997 .

[36]  Phillip L. Carter,et al.  SUPPLIER INNOVATIVENESS AND THE ROLE OF INTERORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING IN ENHANCING MANUFACTURER CAPABILITIES , 2008 .

[37]  Francisco Lima,et al.  Cooperation in innovation activities: The importance of partners , 2010 .

[38]  Andrea Prencipe,et al.  The Business of Systems Integration , 2004 .

[39]  F. Bookstein,et al.  Two Structural Equation Models: LISREL and PLS Applied to Consumer Exit-Voice Theory: , 1982 .

[40]  Frits K. Pil,et al.  Modularity: Implications for Imitation, Innovation, and Sustained Advantage , 2006 .

[41]  P. Cardona,et al.  Modularity, strategic flexibility, and firm performance: A study of the home appliance industry , 2002 .

[42]  Richard C.M. Yam,et al.  The Impact of Product Modularity on New Product Performance: Mediation by Product Innovativeness , 2011 .

[43]  R. Bagozzi,et al.  On the evaluation of structural equation models , 1988 .

[44]  Roger J. Calantone,et al.  New product development processes and new product profitability: Exploring the mediating role of speed to market and product quality , 2011 .

[45]  Brian Squire,et al.  Modularization and the impact on supply relationships , 2007 .

[46]  O. Sorenson,et al.  Technology as a complex adaptive system: evidence from patent data , 2001 .

[47]  Thayaparan Gajendran,et al.  Deconstructing dynamic capabilities: the role of cognitive and organizational routines in the innovation process , 2014 .

[48]  C. Fornell,et al.  Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. , 1981 .

[49]  T. Das,et al.  A Resource-Based Theory of Strategic Alliances , 2000 .

[50]  Anand Swaminathan,et al.  Modularity and the Impact of Buyer - Supplier Relationships on the Survival of Suppliers , 2007, Manag. Sci..

[51]  A. Kieser,et al.  Learning to Reduce Interorganizational Learning: An Analysis of Architectural Product Innovation in Strategic Alliances* , 2007 .

[52]  Kim B. Clark,et al.  The Option Value of Modularity in Design: An Example From Design Rules, Volume 1: The Power of Modularity , 2000 .