Knowledge Spillovers in the Supply Chain: Evidence from the High-Tech Sectors

In addition to R&D investment, accessing external knowledge is widely considered as an essential lever for innovative performance. This paper analyzes knowledge spillovers in supply chain networks. Specifically, we investigate how supplier innovation is impacted by buyer innovation. Supply chain relationship data is merged with financial accounting data and patent data to create a sample of 521 supplier observations in the high tech industries. Using econometric panel data techniques we show evidence that buyer innovation has a significant positive impact on supplier innovation. We find that the duration of the buyer-supplier relationship positively moderates this effect, but that the technological proximity between the two firms does not have a significant effect on spillovers.