Bridging knowledge boundaries: When overlapping suppliers enhance buyer innovation through technological breadth

This study examines conflicting views in supply chain research concerning overlapping suppliers, those serving multiple competing buyers, and their impact on the focal buyer's innovation performance. One stream emphasizes benefits, arguing that overlapping suppliers bring diverse knowledge and problem-solving skills gained from serving varied buyers and thus can be instrumental for the focal buyer's innovation. Another stream expresses skepticism regarding their effectiveness as knowledge sources. To reconcile these perspectives, this study draws on social network and resource dependence theories to propose that suppliers' technological breadth is a key bridging mechanism, such that higher technological breadth in overlapping suppliers contributes to the focal buyer's innovation. The study also argues that this effect depends on buyer-supplier relationship factors: longer relationships foster trust and knowledge diversity, while high dependence on a few buyers may cause technological lock-in and limit knowledge diversity. Empirical analysis of the global semiconductor industry (2006–2019) supports these arguments. The findings contribute to the literature by offering a framework to clarify the role of overlapping suppliers as a critical source of new and diverse knowledge that can be instrumental to the focal buyer's innovation.