Supply chain involvement for better product development performance

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impacts of three types of supply chain involvement (SCI) on three types of new product development (NPD) performance. Design/methodology/approach – To test the research hypotheses, structural equation modeling was conducted using data from 214 Chinese manufacturing companies. Findings – The results reveal that internal involvement is positively associated with customer and supplier involvement. It was also found that three types of SCI influence three types of NPD performance differently. Specifically, internal involvement is important in improving NPD speed, while customer and supplier involvement have significant effects on NPD cost and NPD speed. Moreover, internal and customer involvement enhance market performance indirectly, whereas supplier involvement improves market performance both directly and indirectly. Research limitations/implications – This research examines the relationship between SCI and NPD performance in China. However, the effectiveness of SCI may be contingent on various factors (such as involvement timing, innovation strategy and business environment) and the relationship may be different in other cultural contexts. Practical implications – Managers should adopt a holistic SCI perspective to manage their supply chains when developing new products, to achieve better performance. Originality/value – This study contributes to SCI literature and practices by defining three types of SCI in the context of supply chain, examining the relationships among them and revealing the impacts of different types of SCI on different types of NPD performance.