An analysis of supplier involvement in manufacturing supply chain management

Supplier involvement as one possible explanatory factor of product success has been gathering growing attention from both managers and researcher [28]. This paper seeks to analyze the factors which greatly affect the supplier involvement and present a coherent framework in the context of China manufacturing factory. After investigation and interviewing 60 firms in Zhejiang province, the findings suggest that supplier characteristic, supplier-manufacturer relationship and firm’s organization are positively associated with supplier involvement capability which effectively influences the innovation performance of supplier involvement. Some theoretical and practical implications are also discussed in this paper.