DIFFUSION OF INNOVATIONS AMONG ORGANIZATIONS: EVIDENCES FROM A STUDY IN AN AUTOMOTIVE SUPPLY CHAIN

Abstract

In addition to increasing the individual firm innovation capabilities, there should also be a concern in spreading the innovations across organizational networks, in order to enhance their impact on the system’s performance as a whole. This study aims to analyze the diffusion of innovations among members of a supply chain of the automotive industry. Given the challenges that involve the management of innovation in organizations embedded in supply chains, this study soughs, by conducting a case study in eight companies of the automotive sector, to understand and describe how the phenomenon of the diffusion of innovations occurs among members of the supply chain actors and which relational and structural aspects have influence over the process. Building effective channels for the occurrence of the diffusion depends on the articulation between intra and interorganizational factors, which will determine the degree of participation of each member in the practices established by the assembler for that purpose, which concentrates the diffusion flows identified, given its central position in the system. These channels, however, remain restricted to the group formed by the first-tier suppliers, which demonstrate higher levels of capabilities and greater integration with the assembler, which puts them in a privileged position as the main agents of the process of introduction and diffusion of new technologies in the system.