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Organizational learning is a critical factor in generating firm innovation. While the firms are working with global business partners, not only does their absorptive learning capacity (ALC) with business partners play an important role in generating innovation from the inter-partner firm relationship, but their joint learning capacity (JLC) does as well. However, little research has simultaneously examined absorptive and JLC on innovation in global supply chain relationships. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Drawing on the knowledge-based view, inter-partner learning theory and resource dependence theory, the current study investigates the effects of two organizational learning capacities on relationship-specific innovation: ALC (firm-level) and JLC (relationship level). In addition, a firm’s focus on exploitation/exploration strategy and supplier dependence is further incorporated into the study as moderators. Moreover, solutions to endogeneity issues are discussed and reported due to the usage of survey data. The model of this study was tested using data collected from 190 electronics firms in Taiwan as an emerging market.

The findings of this research reveal that JLC in the presence of absorptive capacity positively influences relationship-specific innovation. Furthermore, the exploitation focus of a firm positively moderates the effects of both absorptive and JLC on relationship-specific innovation. However, supplier dependence negatively moderates the effect of JLC.

The research provides some theoretical implications for learning and innovation generation in global supply chains.

The paper provides some managerial implications for how to manage innovations in the global supply chain relationships.

This paper fulfills an identified need to study how innovation generation can be better managed in global supply chain contexts.

With the growing trend of digital technology in global supply chains, how to manage global supply chain relationships under digital transformation becomes a critical issue. However, academic research in this area is sparse. This study develops and tests a theoretical framework of the moderating effect of virtual integration on interorganziational governance in international customer supplier relationships.

We chose to examine the specific cross-border relationships between Taiwanese suppliers and their international OEMs because Taiwanese suppliers tend to be smaller than their international OEM customers, and thus their relationships usually show power asymmetry. Furthermore, the Taiwanese electronics industry offers a valuable empirical context because its industry members have served as pioneers in information technology development, have championed cross-border relationships with US and European industry leaders and are actively participating in the world economy

Our empirical findings indicate that virtual integration will strengthen the effect contractual governance on relationship performance. However, the moderating effect of virtual integration on relational governance is not significant. The paper discusses the theoretical and managerial implications in the end.

This study contributes to interorganizational governance literature in international contexts. Previous work on international relationship management has focused much on MNE buyers' perspectives and paid little attention to the suppliers' perspectives. This study extends this stream of research by empirically examining how suppliers can govern their MNEs' customers via different governance mechanisms. The findings extend literature on virtual integration and show that virtual integration can complement detailed contract and safeguard opportunism, which in turn, enhance relationship performance in international customer–supplier relationships.

This study aims to explore how absorptive and joint learning can foster radical innovation. Furthermore, dependence asymmetry is investigated as a moderator of the effects of these factors on radical innovation. Radical innovation is an important source of any firm’s success. Yet, there has been a dearth of research in the literature on how different types of inter-partner learning cultivate the process of generating such innovation.

The authors use a sample of 204 Taiwanese electronics suppliers to test the effects of joint learning and absorptive learning on radical innovation. The empirical analysis adopts a structural equations modeling approach.

The authors find that a supplier’s joint learning has a stronger effect on radical innovation than its absorptive learning. However, when accounting for the moderating effect of dependence asymmetry, the analysis shows that absorptive learning does have a significant effect on radical innovation. The effect of joint learning on radical innovation is not moderated by the degree of dependence asymmetry.

This study broadens and deepens the understanding of how radical innovation by suppliers can be generated in customer–supplier relationships, and how this is shaped by the power-dependence structure.

Inter-partner learning; radical innovation; power; dependence.

This study aims to develop and test a framework of the antecedents to and performance outcomes of exporters’ use of different services offered by Internet-based Business-to-Business (I-B2B) platforms.

We test the model based on a unique survey dataset of 350 Chinese exporters who subscribed to Alibaba.com, a major I-B2B platform.

Drawing on the signaling theory, export and I-B2B platform literature, we develop a typology of exporters’ use of services offered by I-B2B platforms. We find that the extent to which firms have cost efficiency advantages, adopt an export diversity strategy, operate under high levels of psychic distance and experience high levels of domestic regulatory uncertainty are all positively related to exporters’ use of I-B2B platform services. The use of those services is either positively or negatively related to export success depending on the services in question. The magnitudes of these performance relationships are contingent on the exporters’ transparency strategies.

This is the first study to examine the antecedents to and consequences of exporters’ use of the services offered by I-B2B platforms.

Disruptive external forces can bring businesses to a standstill and make their strategic plans obsolete overnight. COVID-19 exemplifies such a disruptive force, which has caused worldwide havoc and ongoing disruption in many sectors of the economy, while concurrently providing great opportunities for others. The goal in this study is to examine the experiences of firms that have been impacted by a prior disruptive force, offer five theoretical lenses for framing and examining such events, and provide a set of axioms based on the research findings.

The authors used a qualitative approach involving five short international marketing case studies of firms based in South Korea and Taiwan. These nations and firms were selected on the bases of their overall judicious navigation of the conditions presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors gathered information about these firms through primary sources of information (personal and remote interviews as well as other communications), which the authors augmented with information from secondary sources.

The results indicate that external forces can bring both opportunities and threats to firms' international marketing strategies. The authors found that two strategies help firms cope with managerial issues associated with both the demand and the supply sides in successful firms in these nations: (1) leveraging opportunities presented by the pandemic through the successive introductions of new product and (2) the expansion of both the domestic and international markets.

The research provides five theoretical lenses to articulate the impact of disruptive external forces on international marketing strategies.

The research offers thirteen demand and supply side axioms for marketing managers involved in international business (e.g. exporters, importers, MNCs) to cope with disruptive external forces, like COVID-19.

Disruptive external forces, such as the pandemic, have enormous impact on firms and consumers alike. This research aims to limit the negative impact of future disruptions by engaging in contingency planning and added resilience, through which firms may continue to function and, to a large extent, consumers are able to acquire the necessary goods and services to maintain their quality of life.

The authors attribute the quicker response of these firms to their agility in managing the market impacts related to COVID-19 and to their prior conditioning in their respective geopolitical spheres. The authors summarize the findings in a set of nine supply side and a set of four demand side axioms.

Endogeneity is a potential threat to the validity of international marketing (IM) research. The purpose of this paper is to draw the attention of IM researchers to issues of endogeneity, to provide a comprehensive overview of the sources of endogeneity, and to discuss the statistical solutions.

The authors conduct the research in two steps. In the first step, the authors review the nature and sources of endogeneity specifically in IM research. In the second step, the authors review 60 IM papers on endogeneity published in the period 1995-2014 and assess the current practice of addressing endogeneity in the IM literature.

Sample selection bias and simultaneity are prevalent sources of endogeneity in IM research. Internationalization-performance relationship and innovation-export nexus are the two most frequently adopted models subject to potential endogeneity. Simply lagging the main independent variable is statistically flawed in dealing with endogeneity despite its popularity in IM research.

First, a careful choice and application of methods are critical when addressing endogeneity. Second, the authors suggest the employment of multiple study methods to address endogeneity robustly. Third, to prevent or solve endogeneity in structural equation modeling, researchers may either collect data on independent and dependent variables from different respondents or employ a two-stage least squares approach. Finally, it is helpful to design dedicated models to prevent proactively potential endogeneity a priori.

The contribution of this study is twofold. First, it is the first in the literature to discuss the endogeneity issue specifically in IM research. In particular, the study elaborates the origins and consequences of the three most frequently confronted types of endogeneity in IM research. Second, the authors assess the four major methods of addressing endogeneity in IM research with a systematic discussion of the literature from the last two decades. The authors offer suggestions on how to minimize endogeneity in model design and empirical implementation for future IM research.

Key account management plays a pivotal role for managers and practitioners in maintaining successful customer–supplier relationships. Yet, little is known conceptually and empirically as to how suppliers can develop international key account management capabilities in international customer–supplier relationships. Drawing from resource-based view and dynamic capability literature, we develop and test a model of the impact of IT capabilities on international key account management capabilities and firm performance. An explorative case study of Taiwanese electronics suppliers reveals that IT capabilities are critical to develop supplier international key account management capabilities. Moreover, IT capabilities can enhance supplier performance through improving international KAM capabilities.