New Ways or Hidden Ways of Marketing? The Melbourne Mountain Bike Industry as an Exemplar of the Emergence of Variations on Traditional Marketing Orientation and the Emergence of Transitory Product Management Practices

Abstract

Today's business and organisational community is well‐versed in the conventions of marketing orientation and the new product development process. Each is an integral component of both specialist texts on new product development (Crawford, 1997; Urban and Hauser, 1993; Hisrich and Peters, 1991; Kuczmarski, 1992) and generalist texts (Kotler, 1996; Stanton et al, 1994; McColl‐Kennedy et al, 1994; Kotler et al, 1994; McCarthy and Perrault, 1990). In the specialist texts, the new product development process can vary. For example, Crawford and Kuczmarski emphasise the contextualisation of the new product development process within a broader and preceding strategic or marketing planning emphasis than does Urban and Hauser. At the same time, some generalist work such as Kotler, McColl‐Kennedy et al, and Zikmund and d'Amico (1993) place decidely more emphasis on establishing a difference between the idea screening and product development stages. Nevertheless, the specialist texts concur on the general procedure being a linear one that involves eleven key stages. This is discussed in more detail in section 3.6.