A supplier's interorganizational ties can be a source of novelty as well as information leakage risk when a buyer involves suppliers in a new product development project. We use signaling theory to explain how supplier ties affect a purchasing manager's perception of suppliers. Three types of supplier ties are considered: ties with external innovation partners, with customers outside the buying firm's industry, and with the buying firm's competitors. We posit that managers use supplier ties as signals to indicate a supplier's potential in contributing to innovation novelty or information protection. Results from two scenario‐based experiments with practicing managers support most of our hypotheses. When innovation novelty is the goal, managers perceive other‐industry customer ties and external innovation ties as positive signals, while competitor ties as a negative signal. When information protection is the goal, all three types of ties are perceived negatively. When both goals are considered, information protection has a greater influence than innovation novelty on the final supplier selection likelihood.

中文翻译：

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在新产品开发项目的供应商选择中权衡创新的新颖性和信息保护：将供应商联系作为信号

当购买者让供应商参与新产品开发项目时，供应商的组织间联系可能会成为新颖性以及信息泄露风险的来源。我们使用信号理论来解释供应商关系如何影响采购经理对供应商的看法。考虑了三种类型的供应商关系：与外部创新合作伙伴，与购买公司所在行业以外的客户以及与购买公司的竞争对手的关系。我们假设管理者使用供应商关系作为信号，以表明供应商在促进创新或信息保护方面的潜力。来自两个与实践管理人员进行的基于场景的实验的结果支持了我们的大多数假设。当以创新为目标时，管理者将其他行业的客户关系和外部创新关系视为积极的信号，而竞争对手的关系则为消极的信号。当以信息保护为目标时，所有三种类型的联系都被否定了。当同时考虑这两个目标时，信息保护对创新性的最终供应商选择的影响要大于创新性。