Management of Technology and Innovation in Japan

Suppliers’ Involvement in New Product Development 239
In addition, three indicators are designed to measure the internal complexity of
auto parts.
9. Functional Multiplicity (FMU) – the assessment of how many functions the
sample auto part contributes.
10. Structural Complexity (SCM) – the assessment of how complex the sample
auto parts are in terms of their internal structure such as the number of parts
used and the engineering hour used for manufacturing.
11. Technologically Advanced Degree (TAD) – the assessment of how advanced
is the technology required to design the sample auto part. TAD also reflects
the technological uncertainty related to the sample part. The number of patents
related to the design and manufacturing of the auto part is one measure
used for this indicator.
Case Study on Pattern Choices of Suppliers’ Involvement
into New Product Development
The setting of our case study is specified as a transaction dyad in which only auto
maker A and one of its first-tier suppliers B are present. After receiving the approval
from a senior manager at the supplier B to conduct our study on the basis of
a confidentiality agreement at the end of 1998, we sent him the questionnaire on
the supplier’s roles during auto maker A’s new product development and the architectural
attributes of auto parts that were to be measured on 11 indicators mentioned
above. After review and confirmation about the question items, our respondent
randomly chose 33 parts and measured their attributes on a 5-point scale
(with 1 indicating a “very low” level and 5 indicating a “very high” level) using
his subjective perceptions. Although it may raise concerns about bias and the reliability
of the responses, the judgment of the respondent based on his long career
experience and receiving confirmation from other engineers of the validity of the
responses to be an appropriate approximation for the purposes this exploratory
empirical study.
Our processing of data base began with a correlation analysis. Table 1 shows
the correlation coefficients matrix. A relatively strong positive correlation exists
between FIN and PME. This result supported our intention of using these indicators
as the variables for reflecting the functional interdependence between auto
parts. To our surprise, there was no correlation between ICP and ICM which were
used to measure the physical interfaces between auto parts. This could suggest that
there may be more than one dimension of the interface being measured. Additionally,
consistent with our expectation, an extremely high correlation is observed
among the variables indicating the internal features of auto parts design.