An Exploratory Study of the Effect of Buyer-supplier Relationship on Supplier's Innovation : Cases from Semiconductor Equipment Industry

구매자-공급자 관계가 공급자 혁신에 미치는 영향에 대한 탐색적 연구 : 반도체 장비 산업 사례를 중심으로

Numerous studies in the field of buyer-supplier relationship research have focused on the buyer's performance. In contrast, supplier's performance has been paid relatively little attention by researchers, especially the research about the supplier's innovation in the relationship is still in its early stage. In this paper, we examine the relation between the attribute of buyer-supplier relationship and the attribute of supplier's innovation through case research. We define the attribute of buyer-supplier relationship as 'tie strength' (Granovetter, 1973), and the attribute of supplier's innovation as 'exploitation or exploration' (March, 1991). We selected the semiconductor equipment industry of U.S.A, Japan and Korea and firm (JUSUNG Engineering) as cases that examine the relation. We found that a strong tie relationship is positively associated with supplier's exploitation based innovation, and a weak tie relationship is positively related to it's exploration based innovation in this research also. In addition, we could verify reduction of strong tie relationship cause supplier's organizational change.