2006 Awards for Excellence

The following article was selected for this year’s Outstanding Paper Award for Management Decision

‘‘What the hare can teach the tortoise about make-buy strategies for radical innovations’’

Robert K. Perrons Shell International BV, Rijswijk, The Netherlands

Matthew G. RichardsMassachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

Ken PlattsUniversity of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

Purpose – The purpose of this investigation is to help establish: whether or not strong relationships between suppliers and customers improve performance; and if prescriptive frameworks on outsourcing radical innovations are dependent on industry clockspeed.Design/methodology/approach– A survey of UK-based manufacturers, followed by a statistical analysis.Findings – Long-term supplier links seem not to play a role in the development of radical innovations. Moreover, industry clockspeed has no significant bearing on the success or failure of any outsourcing strategy for radically new technologies.Research limitations/implications – Literature about outsourcing in the face of radical innovation can be more confidently applied to industries of all clockspeeds.Practical implications – Prescriptions for fast clockspeed industries should be applied more broadly: all industries should maintain a high degree of vertical integration in the early days of a radical innovation.Originality/value – Prior papers had explored whether or not a company should outsource radical innovations, but none had determined if this is equally true for slow industries and fast ones. Therein lies the original contribution of this paper.

Keywords: Innovation, Make or buy decisions, Outsourcing,Supplier relations, United Kingdomwww.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/00251740510597707This article originally appeared in Management Decision, Volume 43 Number 5, 2005 www.emeraldinsight.com/authors