The study shows that when companies are innovative in their supply chain, they tend to be more innovative themselves. This is especially true when companies are good at learning from others and rely heavily on their suppliers. Companies with strong absorptive capacity benefit the most from upstream innovation. Additionally, when companies depend more on their suppliers, their ability to innovate is boosted even further. This means that being open to new ideas from suppliers and investing in learning from them can help companies improve their own innovation.