Over the last few decades, innovation has doubled automobile performance at a time when outsourcing has increased. But outsourcing is subject to well-known contracting hazards that would also afflict outsourcing for innovation. In this paper, we examine how supplier firms generate innovation in...

This paper takes a detailed look at the automotive supply chain to gain insight into how engineers generate innovation. Using survey data and observations from dozens of site visits to manufacturers, we characterize the incremental improvements in processes and product quality that accumulate to...

Alfred Chandler attributed the rise of the vertically integrated corporation in the twentieth century to improvements in transportation and communication. In contrast, many have argued that further advances in transportation and communication have made vertical integration obsolete in recent...