Research On The Mechanism Of Supplier Involvement In Product R&D Performance

The United States starts the "reindustrialization" process and Germany begins to implement the industrial 4.0 strategy. These trends convey the same information: Manufacturing is still the focus of economic warfare in the world. When the advantage of cost has disappeared, the developed country manufacturing industry returned-back, the market competition that our manufacturing enterprise facing is more intense. In order to further control R&D costs, reducing risk, shorting the product development cycle, manufacturers begins to consciously look for new research and development model and the integration of resources on the supply chain becomes imperative. To join the product development, not only can make full use of the resources of both sides but to promote the innovation of the corresponding industry. It is an effective measure to deal with the new situation of enterprise transformation and upgrading.Based on a comprehensive review of domestic and foreign literatures about the supplier’s participation in product development, this paper makes the theory of supply chain management, social exchange theory and so on as a guide. Three factors that influence the performance of supplier and manufacturer’s R&D are summarized through the summary of the literature. They are supplier’s attitude, ability and skill that participating in product development and the cooperation innovation behavior is seemed as the intermediary variable to connect with the product research and development performance. And then this paper put forward the research hypothesis according to the structure that the role model of supplier involvement in product R&D performance. Finally, 270 samples were recovered by questionnaire. Using descriptive statistical analysis method to develop the basic information of the questionnaire and the reliability and validity analysis method are also used to judge the reliability of the questionnaire. Last but not least, using the structural equation to verify the research hypothesis. The results of the study show that the attitude, ability and skill of the supplier’s participation have an immediate action to the product development performance, at the same time, the indirect effects of the three cooperation on product R&D performance are also verified. The mediating role of cooperative innovation behavior has also been verified. Based on the results of the above research, this research puts forward the path of improving the performance of the supplier’s product development: To improve the attitude and the ability of supplier’s participating in product development and mastering the skills of supplier involvement.