Supplier Development: A Knowledge Management Perspective

As a key supply chain management practice, supplier development has been found to yield positive performance and capability consequences. However, it remains unclear why these consequences are achieved. Even though supplier development is predicated on knowledge management activities, it is rarely studied from a knowledge management perspective. In order to bring greater clarity to the connections between supplier development and its consequences, we leverage the knowledge chain theory to capture buyers' and suppliers' knowledge management activities in supplier development. Through an extensive review and systematic classification of supplier development activities in the literature, this study generates a reliable catalog of supplier development activities, finds support for the knowledge management perspective, and reveals the extent to which supplier development activities are knowledge-based activities. In addition, we generate an integrated definition, a meaningful taxonomy, and a comprehensive implementation approach for supplier development. Further, we illuminate how positive performance and capability consequences of supplier development can be achieved through the design and execution of knowledge activities embedded within supplier development activities. This study contributes to extant research by articulating the important role of knowledge and knowledge management in supplier development and advancing a comprehensive, unified, organized foundation for understanding supplier development and its link with performance.