An enduring challenge of soaring market complexity has significant impact on global manufacturing firms. The purpose of this paper is to explore a product modularity-based routine that enables global manufacturing firms to leverage product innovation, particularly in an open challenging environment through the collaborative innovation network. Based on an analysis of the effects of product modularity on collaborative innovation, this paper develops a collaborative innovation network model featuring customerdriven, module as innovation carrier and sustainability, in which the modular product architecture (MPA) plays a role in linking customers, the core firm, and heterogeneous external partners. Next, two kinds of generic partnership management mechanisms are designed. Results in conjunction with an explorative case study show that the positive impact of product modularity on collaborative innovation is verified, which not only facilitates interactions among participants in the collaborative innovation network, but also provides an effective way for the global manufacturing firm to manage external partners. INDEX TERMS collaborative innovation network, global manufacturing firms, product modularity, partnership management mechanism

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In an open innovation environment, it is meaningful for manufacturing enterprises targeting global markets to integrate qualified innovation resources. In this paper, the linkage between product modularity and open innovation is first discussed, revealing a role that modular product architecture plays in linking enterprises’ innovation requirements and innovation resources as external innovation inputs. Next, indices for evaluating external innovation resources are developed. An evaluation method based on fuzzy distance is then proposed, which is intended to select optimal resources for the core modules of modular product architecture. A modular product of Haier Group is used as a typical case to verify the proposed method. Consistent evaluation results of innovation resources are achieved for different decision-making attitudes. Another finding regarding the case enterprise is that the resource management mechanisms it employs lead to a win-win cooperative relationship with its partners.