摘要：随着商业竞争加剧，生产企业越来越需要与供应商合作；同时知识成为企业的重要资源，那么企业与供应商合作创造新知识的活动尤为重要。以往研究显示，对生产商而言，各供应商担当着不同的角色。本文以供应商所供应的商品的差异表达供应商的异质性，进而探讨供应商与生产商开展合作知识创造的情况，揭示不同供应商在参与程度上的差异。就此问题，以美国汽车生产行业中供应商与生产商共同创造知识的活动为研究对象，采用专利数据计量方法，开展实证检验。结果显示供应产品部件的供应商比供应生产设备的供应商更可能与生产商开展合作；供应部件的供应商中，部件对生产商越重要，越有可能与生产商开展合作。

Abstract: Along with intensive competitions in the business world, manufacture firms need pay more attention to the cooperation with their suppliers than before, and meanwhile, knowledge has become firms’ important resource. So the cooperative knowledge creation between enterprises and thier supplies have become more and more important. For certain firms, suppliers act different roles. There may be heterogeneity among different suppliers in the cooperative knowledge creation. The difference of merchandise provided by suppliers express their different roles, whether and how upstream suppliers’ different roles impact their cooperation in knowledge creation with downstream firms is analyzed. Adopting US auto manufacturing industry as the subject, and using USPTO’s online patent data as proxy for the knowledge creation activities, the issues is empirically analyzed. Results reveal suppliers who provide components, comparing with those who provide manufacture equipments, are more likely take part in the cooperation of knowledge creation with downstream firms; the suppliers who provide important components, compaing with those who provide unimportant components, are more likely take part in the cooperation of knowledge creation with downstream firms.