Value innovation, deliberate learning mechanisms and information from supply chain partners

Although marketing scholars have emphasized both the importance of internal learning mechanisms and of external learning through supply chain partners research findings on how these factors influence each other are merely lacking. Analyzing survey data of 182 industrial firms, we examine how information provision by upstream and downstream supply chain parties moderates the effect of internal deliberate learning mechanisms on value innovation ability. Results of the PLS analysis suggest that internal learning mechanisms and external information exchange do not always work symbiotically. Our findings provide interesting results for (the management of) innovation processes and supply chain relations.

► Real value innovators exploit supply chain partners' information provision.
► Companies do not need new technologies to deviate from existing business models and create new value for customers.
► Supplier information and customer information are both useful for value innovation, but operate in a different way.
► Mechanisms for intra-organizational and inter-organizational learning are not to be considered in isolation.