Li, Tianxiong, Yang, Qian, Li, Di and Geng, Ruoqi  ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-7379
2026.
The differential impact of supplier and customer concentration on open innovation: Evidence from Chinese listed manufacturing firms.
IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management
10.1109/tem.2026.3722640
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Abstract
To sustain competitive advantage, firms increasingly adopt open innovation (OI) by leveraging external collaborations. While prior research highlights the importance of supply chain relationships for innovation, how supply chain dependency shapes product-related OI remains underexplored. Integrating Resource Dependence Theory (RDT) and the Knowledge-Based View (KBV) through the key knowledge dependency, this study examines how supplier concentration (SC) and customer concentration (CC) differ in their relationships with OI, and how main business uniqueness (MBU) and betweenness centrality (BC) moderate these relationships. Using panel data from Chinese listed manufacturing firms from 2013 to 2022, we empirically test these relationships. To ensure the research rigor, we subject the findings to comprehensive robustness checks (alternative measures, lagged designs, Heckman correction for sample selection, and 2SLS estimation for endogeneity) and further validate them through K-means cluster analysis. The results reveal some key insights: (1) SC exhibits a significant negative relationship with OI, whereas CC shows a positive association; (2) MBU strengthens the link between CC and OI, while high BC amplifies SC's negative effect and attenuates CC's positive effect; and (3) SC's negative association with OI consistently dominates CC's positive association across configurations. Moreover, MBU's moderating role is significant only in low SC-high CC clusters and BC exhibits varying effects depending on the supply chain configuration. These findings highlight the critical role of dependency structure and position in innovation and provide configurational guidelines for managing OI in complex supply chain contexts.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Date Type: | Published Online |
| Status: | In Press |
| Schools: | Schools > Business (Including Economics) |
| Additional Information: | RRS policy applied |
| Publisher: | Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) |
| ISSN: | 0018-9391 |
| Date of First Compliant Deposit: | 18 August 2026 |
| Last Modified: | 01 Sep 2026 11:00 |
| URI: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/189030 |
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