Core and Overlapping Knowledge, Integration, and Process Performance: An Empirical Study of the Buyer-Product Engineer Dyad

Despite the prominence that knowledge management theory holds within extant studies of operations and supply chain management, the role of knowledge within the concurrent execution of linked sourcing and new product development projects has received little attention. Using primary data collected from direct material buyers and matched product engineers, we examine the causal linkages amongst knowledge, cross-functional integration, and process performance. Our conceptualization of knowledge incorporates both core knowledge and overlap knowledge; using a second-order construct, we operationalize these aspects of knowledge in terms of supplier, supply market, and technical knowledge. The results indicate that knowledge is significantly and positively associated with cross-functional integration. Further, we find that cross-functional integration significantly affects the success of both the direct materials sourcing and the new product development processes. These findings underscore the importance of core and overlap knowledge within cross-functional approaches to business process management.