Leveraging boundary spanning capabilities to encourage supplier investment: A comparative study

Despite growing recognition of the importance of boundary spanners at managing inter-organizational relationships, the process by which capabilities residing in boundary spanning individuals are leveraged to encourage partner firm investment remains unclear. In addressing this gap, we find that a boundary spanner's capabilities in strategic communication and job expertise enhance a customer firm's communication with a supplier firm, which increases a supplier's willingness to make future-oriented investment both directly as well as indirectly through increasing customer firm trustworthiness. Data collected from two samples of suppliers in the U.S. and other Western industrialized countries provide empirical support for our propositions. Furthermore, we found that the process of how boundary spanning capabilities influence supplier willingness to invest differs significantly between the two regions in ways that affect managerial decisions on resource allocation.