Purchasing Involvement in Discontinuous Innovation: An Emerging Research Agenda

International audienceBuilding on a systematic review of the literature, we define and discuss why and how purchasing needs to be involved in the discontinuous innovation process. We argue that purchasing involvement in NPD should be considered mainly when the customer firm faces discontinuous innovation. Seeking to promote this emerging research agenda, we present three propositions to focus future studies and inspire practices: (a) technology sourcing and scanning out of the boundary of the supply base is an important stake to support discontinuous innovation as (b) to form an ambidextrous purchasing organization and (c) to develop absorptive capacity within purchasing function. The paper concludes by summarizing the conceptual implications of the paper, outlining some initial managerial recommendations