8. Discussion of Findings

This doctoral project began with an investigation of a big problem suppliers are confronted with when marketing their innovations. They usually approach the value chain by dealing with their immediate customers and essentially pushing their innovations into a value chain. But immediate customers often have low incentives to adopt supplier innovations. To break through immediate customers’ resistance, suppliers rely more and more on VCM by enlarging their target group beyond their immediate customers and addressing their downstream customers as well. This doctoral thesis fosters the understanding of VCM. In order to minimize the limitations, the present work uses three different methods, namely a pilot study, a case study, and a simulation study. Based on the pilot study results, research propositions are developed and tested in the second step by conducting multiple case studies. The agent-based simulation study, in turn, tries to remedy the deficiencies of the case study research. The different studies and analyses have answered the question of how supplier innovations could be promoted and implemented more effectively and efficiently via VCM. The strong alignment of qualitative research and computational modeling ensures the validity of the simulation study.