Multilevel interaction mechanisms influencing knowledge integration in innovation projects in buyer-supplier dyads

This study investigates how interaction mechanisms at multiple levels of analysis and their cross-level effects influence knowledge integration within innovation projects in Complex Products and Systems (CoPSs) industry buyer-supplier dyads. Adopting a knowledge-as-practice perspective, we provide a possible choice to much of the existing discussion, emphasizing a knowledge-as-possession perspective. We collected data from two case-study Original Equipment Manufacturers and two associated suppliers and analysed these utilizing Template Analysis and cross-case analysis. Our results show how different interaction mechanisms, forming part of structural, processual and behavioural types of interaction mechanisms and their cross-level effects, influence knowledge integration. The theoretical framework proposed in this article adds to the existing evidence base in that different theoretical phenomena - that were unrelated, or hardly related, to knowledge integration - were identified to have generative influences on knowledge integration at various levels.

Our suggested permeation of the structural and processual interaction mechanisms by the behavioural interaction mechanisms also offers a base for conceptual integration between interaction mechanisms and knowledge integration across different analysis levels, increasing the scope of analysis of interaction mechanisms and their impact on knowledge integration.