Abstract
New product development (NPD) is essential for large, as well as small and medium, enterprises (SMEs). Despite its importance for the economy, challenges remain in the NPD in SMEs. Product success is related with the NPD process, so it is important for SMEs to be able to design their NPD process. This paper aims to identify SME’s NPD research topics, the characteristics of the NPD process in SMEs, and important aspects to be considered for NPD process design. The literature review is done with the analysis of 99 selected academic articles from Scopus and ScienceDirect. Content analysis, bibliographic analysis, and clustering method (based on Pearson’s correlation coefficient) are used to conduct the identification. Less-formal processes, informal strategic planning, limited resources, need technology support, and lack of capabilities in certain fields are some of the characteristics of SME’s NPD. Collaborative product development, competitive advantage, information and communication technology (ICT), concurrent engineering, quality function deployment, and continuous improvement are important keywords based on previous research in SME’s NPD. Design activities in NPD, collaboration and source of innovation, and process modelling, tools, and techniques appear to be important aspects related with the SME’s NPD process.
Highlights
New product development (NPD) is essential for business
The purpose of this review article was to identify the NPD process in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with the following research questions: RQ 1: What are the topics of previous studies on the NPD process in SMEs?
RQ 2: What are the characteristics of the NPD process in SMEs?
Summary
New product development (NPD) is essential for business. Development and commercialization of new products give competitive advantages and are very important for company’s growth and sustainability [1,2,3]. Prior studies identified that the NPD process is an important key success factor for product development [4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11]. While several issues on the NPD process; such as the NPD process in the context of Industry 4.0 [13], social product development process [14], how digital tools change the NPD process [15], knowledge sharing in NPD processes [16], and resource allocation in NPD processes [17]; have emerged and been studied, it is agreed that an organization needs to design their own NPD process that fits with their strategic goals and situations [3,18,19], and open innovation can help SMEs overcome their innovation issues [20]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callMore From: Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
