Critical factors for involvement in customers’ product development: an SME perspective

Purpose: This paper aims to identify critical factors that influence small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) suppliers’ involvement in their customers’ product development and contrast these with the factors identified from the customer perspective. Design/methodology/approach: A multiple case study approach was used, including four companies. Data were collected through 32 semi-structured interviews, six workshops and documents. Findings: A model is presented that merges this study’s nine identified critical factors with seven critical factors from the customer perspective. The model provides a dual perspective of supplier involvement in product development, wherein the supplier and customer perspectives are concurrently addressed. Some factors are unique for the supplier, but several mirror those on the customer side. Research limitations/implications: The study is based on data from SME suppliers in Northern Europe. As it is expected that SME companies are more constrained by limited resources, future studies could study critical factors at larger suppliers. Practical implications: Customers and suppliers having insights about the critical factors can provide better conditions for product development for the other actor; for example, when evaluating customer–supplier integration. Originality/value: The presented model of critical factors provides a more nuanced picture of supplier involvement in product development as prior research has been biased toward the customer perspective. This study emphasizes the importance of contextual information that has been unnoticed in the literature.