In pursuit of increasing supply chain innovation performance through suppliers’ promotive voice: the moderating role of unlearning and transparency

In today’s dynamic business environment, leveraging innovative supply chain (SC) solutions is critical for increasing competitive advantage. While numerous studies have considered the potential of SC innovation (SCI) in the face of growing new problems and challenges, not much is known about the effect of suppliers’ promotive voice behavior (PVB) in this process. This study extends the current research on SCI by investigating the underlying mechanisms by which firms exploit the suggestions and ideas they gain from SC interactions. Building on the relational view (RV) we develop hypotheses that identify the effect of suppliers’ PVB as an important mediator in the relationship between incentives and SCI. Further, we suggest that incentives and two contextual factors (i.e., unlearning reputation and transparency) interact to predict SCI through suppliers’ PVB. For the purpose of testing the proposed hypothesis a survey was administrated to managers involved in SC relationships. The analysis provides the evidence that suppliers’ PVB has a positive influence on SCI. In addition, the association between incentives and SCI was empirically demonstrated to be mediated by suppliers’ PVB. Furthermore, it was determined that incentive’s effect on SCI through suppliers’ PVB was conditional such that unlearning reputation’s effect depended on transparency. In this regard, this study extends the discussion of factors that influence SCI and provides some theoretical and managerial contributions by examining the interplay between incentives, transparency, and unlearning reputation on the suppliers’ PVB and SCI.