Rethinking the relationship between structure and strategy in the new product projects

Abstract

The continuous development and launching of new products requires rethinking their project management of the innovation process. Extant literature suggests that innovation process is often pursued in an informal and decentralized manner. Contrary to previous works, the purpose of this study employs the competency-based views to examine the linear, curvilinear and contingent relationships among project structure, strategic orientation and new product performance. Regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses in a sample of 80 new product projects. The empirical results indicate that formalization is positively related to new product performance while decentralization has an inverse U-shaped curvilinear effect on new product performance. Furthermore, the regression findings also indicate that market-oriented strategy negatively moderates the relationship between formalization and new product performance, whereas technology-oriented strategy positively moderates the curvilinear relationship between decentralization and new product performance. Finally, the study provides a discussion on the managerial implications and directions for future research.