(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-01-13)
Palit, Shubhobrata
The three essays in this dissertation aim to improve our understanding of the influence of a firm’s network of buyers and suppliers as a source of external technological knowledge and, subsequently on its innovation performance. Such understanding is important for effectively managing technological knowledge, which involves managing not only the firm’s internal but also external technological knowledge. In the first essay (Chapter 2), I focus on the available technological knowledge in a firm’s supplier network and examine factors that accrue innovation benefits from such knowledge for a buyer firm. Specifically, I study technological distance, technological breadth, and extent of global sourcing, and how these factors interrelate in influencing a firm’s innovation performance. In the second essay (Chapter 3), I focus on a buyer as a source of technological knowledge for a supplier, and examine factors that make a supplier accumulate technological knowledge from the buyer. Specifically, I study how buyer innovation, technological similarity between a supplier and a buyer, a supplier’s dependence on a buyer, buyer-supplier size asymmetry, and the interrelationships between them influence the extent of supplier’s knowledge accumulation from the buyer. In the third essay (Chapter 4), I study the extent of a supplier’s knowledge accumulation from its buyers as a mechanism through which buyer innovation positively influences supplier innovation performance. Additionally, I demonstrate the moderating role of the supplier’s position within its supply network on the indirect effect of buyer innovation on supplier innovation performance.