“…Despite its benefits, supplier integration can entail significant costs and challenges. For example, supplier integration requires the allocation of considerable technical and managerial resources (Freel, ; Ledwith & Coughlan, ), implies a great deal of interdependence with regard to design tasks and technological trajectories (Mikkola, ), complicates communication channels (McCutcheon, Grant, & Hartley, ), and creates substantial risks for both parties (Villena, Revilla, & Choi, ). Ultimately, the diseconomies of buyer‐supplier integration can offset or seriously reduce its benefits, as suggested by the fact that a number of empirical studies did not find evidence that supplier integration had a positive impact on NPD performance (Hartley, Zirger, & Kamath, ; McCutcheon et al., ; Koufteros, Vonderembse, & Jayaram, ), and that some studies even found this effect to be negative (King & Penlesky, ; Birou, ; Eisenhardt & Tabrizi, ; Von Corswant & Tunälv, ).…”