Firms are increasingly outsourcing new product development (NPD), yet little is known about the financial performance implications of this decision. An empirical test shows that there is considerable variation in the performance implications of NPD outsourcing. The authors develop a contingency framework to explain when taking a minority equity participation in the outsourcing provider versus selecting a provider to whom the outsourcing firm has outsourced NPD in the past (i.e., prior tie selection) may increase the outsourcing firm's performance. They find that the superior governance mechanism depends on two forms of uncertainty: technological uncertainty and cultural uncertainty.

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Many technology-intensive (TI) firms find it challenging to leverage customisation and achieve sustainable innovation. Although some firms use modularity to tackle this challenge, mixed effects on sustainable innovation have been reported. This study uses organisational learning and ambidexterity theory to provide insights into how TI firms can achieve 'winwin' situations where sustainable innovation is increased through customisation. First, we argue that customisation should be viewed two-dimensionally and identify both modularity and solution space freedom as important dimensions. We argue that modularity reflects knowledge specialisation and solution space freedom reflects knowledge variety. Both of these dimensions affect organisational learning and, in turn, sustainable innovation. Second, we argue that the relationship between customisation and organisational learning is affected by supplier characteristics, specifically supplier sophistication. Survey data from 166 managers were used to empirically test the conceptual model and hypotheses. Polynomial response surface analysis confirms that customising by balancing high degrees of both modularity and solution space freedom results in superior organisational learning. High levels of supplier sophistication do not strengthen these effects. Rather, our results show that combining high degrees of modularity with constrained solution spaces increases learning for TI firms working with less sophisticated suppliers. In addition, organisational learning fully mediates the effect of customisation on sustainable product and process innovation.Keywords: modularity; solution space; customisation; organisational learning; sustainable innovation IntroductionTo adapt to global competitive pressures, firms must accommodate heterogeneous customer needs while mitigating the ecological and environmental impact (Boër et al. 2013;Medini, Da Cunha, and Bernard 2015). On the one hand, the consumerisation of business-to-business (B2B) buying results in customers insisting on complex solutions against lower costs (Davie, Stephenson, and De Uster 2010;Lingqvist, Plotkin, and Stanley 2015). On the other hand, increasing global environmental concerns prompt firms to pay more attention to sustainable innovation, i.e. creating or improving products and processes to contribute to the ecological environment (Boons et al. 2013;Chen, Lai, and Wen 2006;Fiksel et al. 2014;Flores et al. 2008;Foxon and Pearson 2008). While firms have to pursue both customisation and sustainable innovation to remain competitive (Boër et al. 2013;Medini, Da Cunha, and Bernard 2015), pursuing both of these goals jointly is perceived as being very difficult (Boër et al. 2013).The manufacturing paradigms of customisation and sustainable innovation are frequently referred to in the literature, yet mainly treated in isolation. Recent research has brought the two paradigms together and has proposed to simultaneously model customisation and sustainability (e.g. Boër et al. 2013;Medini, Da Cunha, and Bernard 2015). How...

PurposeThe COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown have hit the food service industry very hard. The COVID-19 outbreak has created a sharp downturn for firms in the food service industry, compelling actors across the whole food service supply chain to rethink their strategies. The purpose of this paper is to document the impact of COVID-19 on the food service supply chain, as well as to identify crisis management strategies food service firms use during the hectic early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic to survive the current and prepare for future pandemics.Design/methodology/approachWe performed a qualitative descriptive study using 21 semi-structured interviews with actors across the food service supply chain (i.e. farmers, wholesalers and food service providers). Data were collected to shed light on food service firms' decision making during the hectic early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic to uncover various crisis management strategies used.FindingsBy integrating the disaster and crisis pyramid and resilience theory, four core crisis management strategies to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic are conceptualized, i.e. (1) managing resources, (2) diversifying strategically, (3) prioritizing long-term outcomes and (4) bonding socially.Originality/valueThe theoretical contributions include documenting the performance impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the food service supply chain and exploring crisis management strategies food service firms employed during the hectic early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, functioning and survival during a pandemic, an emerging field in literature, are central to this study. Additionally, while recent research suggests that integrating crisis management and resilience literature may provide a more complete understanding of the organization–crisis relationship, these literature streams mainly developed in isolation. By integrating the literature streams of crisis management and resilience and applying these theories to the COVID-19 crisis, our study provides specific managerial guidelines.