Leveraging new product innovation through R&D practices in engineering manufacturing sector: a study in Indian context

Abstract

This paper presents a framework for scrutinising the interrelationship and impact of constituents of Research & Development (R&D) Practices on new product innovation (PI) success, besides identifying those. Such cited factors, deemed to be critical, are R&D investment, technology, learning, intellectual capital as well as the fuzzy front end (FFE) activities followed by improvisation for innovation. Product innovation has grown into a compelling strategy of manufacturing industries for confronting volatility and rapid changes of market due to globalisation. The aforementioned practices lead to the technological developments of the firm resulting in PI success. An interrelationship framework considering factors of R&D practices and technological improvement is developed, in this work, using structural equation modelling (SEM) approach. The magnitude of the interrelationship, investigated indicates that technology, learning and intellectual capital directly influence R&D effort, which in turn escalates PI. The other constituents, namely FFE activities and improvisation promotes PI success as well.