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The University of Tampa Center for Leadership offers extensive leadership development activities, many of which are based on concepts derived from theories collectively referred to as “new science”. New science – those discoveries in the physical and biological sciences during the twentieth century that have challenged us to consider our world from the perspectives of quantum mechanics, self‐organizing systems, and chaos theory – have been translated into specific leadership development activities. Examples include: (1) a focus on heuristic models to guide leader behaviour; (2) the assessment of leadership competence from multiple, non‐averaged, perspectives in contrast to a top‐down or an “average” perspective; and (3) the use of live practice fields which incorporate many complex relationships among both issues and issue advocates to diagnose and learn about leadership effectiveness within organizations.

Buying firms involve suppliers early in New Product Development (NPD) projects to benefit from their capabilities. The authors investigate the joint impact on project performance improvement, of the social capital established throughout the project, and the strategic preferred buyer/supplier statuses awarded prior to the project, from the buyer's perspective.

The authors propose a conceptual model underlining the complementary contribution to project performance of social capital dimensions and of preferred partners' statuses resulting from social exchange expectations. The model is analyzed with Partial Least Squares using 80 responses of purchasers and R&D managers involved in collaborative NPD projects with suppliers.

The relational capital built during the project has a positive central role, with a direct impact on NPD project performance and mediating effects through cognitive and structural capitals. The preferred partners' statuses have strong direct impacts on performance, and mediating effects that do not completely supplant the social capital's contribution.

The implications for the efficient management of supplier involvement are twofold. First, the authors encourage strategic investments of buying firms to acquire preferred buyer's status and to support preferred supplier programs. Second, the authors alert them on the importance of establishing trust and shared cognition during the project.

This study captures NPD project performance from the social angle of buyer–supplier relationship management. It demonstrates the complementarity of relationship management at the strategic and operational levels, before and during the project unfolding.