Mediation effects of trust and contracts on knowledge-sharing and product innovation

Jon Charterina Abando · Jon Landeta Rodríguez · Imanol Basterretxea

38 citations0/0 files storedEuropean Journal of Innovation Management

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Quality and Supply Management Innovation and Knowledge Management Outsourcing and Supply Chain Management

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the mediating role of contracts and trust on the generation of product innovations stemming from buyer-supplier knowledge-sharing (KS) among the members of the supply chain. Together with the individual effects of trust and contracts, their joint effect is examined in order to determine whether these are complementary or alternative mechanisms of safeguarding and control. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on a survey of 202 European machine tool firms acting as buyers and sellers, the authors propose and evaluate a structural equation model. Findings Results confirm that there is a positive relation between contracts and trust with respect to buyer-supplier KS, and of the latter with respect to innovation performance. They also show that firms in which both the levels of trust and contract use are high reinforce their product-innovation capability based on buyer-supplier interaction (complementarity thesis). However, results also show that, contrary to trust, contracts by themselves do not act as a stimulus for product innovation. Research limitations/implications Establishing contracts seems to be a highly recommended action in a buyer-supplier relationship focused on increasing innovation capacity. This does not go against engendering trust in a relationship. Both trust with a degree of formalization, in different ways, help to increase the effect of sharing valuable knowledge on innovation capacity. Originality/value To the authors’ best knowledge, no prior study has delved into differentiating the use of contracts and trust as mechanisms in mediating the effect originated from knowledge-sharing on product innovation performance with two different samples formed by buying and selling firms.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 38 citations exist upstream.

References

1981Evaluating Structural Equation Models with Unobservable Variables and Measurement Error 2003Common method biases in behavioral research: A critical review of the literature and recommended remedies.1988Structural equation modeling in practice: A review and recommended two-step approach.1973The Strength of Weak Ties 1994The Commitment-Trust Theory of Relationship Marketing 1991Structural Equations with Latent Variables.1986Self-Reports in Organizational Research: Problems and Prospects 1995An Integrative Model Of Organizational Trust

Cited by

2021Knowledge Management Practices for Sustainable Supply Chain Management: A Challenge for Business Education 2023Leadership Styles, Motivation, Communication and Reward Systems in Business Performance 2022The contingent roles of market turbulence and organizational innovativeness on the relationships among interfirm trust, formal contracts, interfirm knowledge sharing and firm performance 2019Buyer–supplier relationships from the perspective of working environment and organisational performance: review and research agenda

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.