Stimulating Innovations by Suppliers – Insights from a Multiple Case Study

Suppliers are increasingly important as sources of innovations and partners in new product development projects. This requires new management approaches which extend the responsibilities of the purchasing function. We focus on a specific dimension of supplier innovation management outside the usual context of joint new product development projects: how to influence the intensity and direction of suppliers’ innovation development and the access to its outcomes, that is, how to stimulate innovations by suppliers? Drawing from a multiple case study of advanced companies, we report on how buying companies can influence their suppliers to gain access to more and better innovations.