Manufacturers involve suppliers in new product development in order to access knowledge and resources, but these benefits only occur with effective project-level integration. Adopting a contingency theory view, we develop hypotheses concerning how two integrative devices, intensive communication...

We introduce a new type of critical supplier — the nexus supplier — that becomes evident when we consider suppliers from a network perspective. The extant literature focuses on the importance of strategic suppliers and identifies strategic suppliers as critical due to their significant...