New Product Development Performance Research Articles

Social Competency and New Product Development Performance

Previous studies have fruitfully investigated the success factors of new product development. Most of these studies explored the phenomenon from the firm/team level. Little has been done from the perspective of how individuals within new product teams contribute to new product development (NPD) and its performance. Yet, any organizational output should be imputable to specific individuals, and understanding the various individuals' respective contributions is paramount to explaining the collective outcome. In this study, we explore the role of social competency of individual members of teams in the NPD process. Our results show that individuals within NPD teams having social competency are social architects who understand and can successfully manage the interaction between organizational and behavioral variables. We find that social competency is a reliable predictor of new product performance. Also, we find that learning is both a mediating and moderating variable, while technological competency and market knowledge are moderators of social competency in its relationship to NPD performance. The implication is that firms should take individual characteristic variables such as social competency into consideration when they develop and commercialize product innovations.

A Comparison of New Service versus New Product Development: Configurations of Collaborative Intensity as Predictors of Performance

Collaboration among firms for innovation has received considerable attention. However, little is known about how firm-to-firm collaboration is configured in new service development (NSD) versus new product development (NPD). This study takes a multidimensional approach and measures firm-to-firm collaboration on different intensity dimensions of (1) processes (mutual communication, joint engagement, sharing responsibilities) and (2) ownership (relationship commitment and mutual trust). By showing that the phenomenon of collaboration is multifaceted, this study is able to knit a more comprehensive and cohesive understanding of the differences between NSD and NPD success as the result of different patterns of collaboration. Specifically, it utilizes survey data collected from 194 alliances to substantiate how NSD and NPD differ on these collaborative dimensions and then explores their impact on NSD versus NPD performance. The findings suggest that collaboration between firms in NSD is configured and works differently than collaboration between firms in NPD. The results further show that there is a stronger, positive relationship of intensity levels of joint engagement among firms involved in product development and performance than when a new service is developed. However, the intensity of mutual trust has a stronger, positive relationship with development performance when a new service is developed than when a new product is developed. Implications are discussed, and suggestions for future research are given.

Understanding the Elusive Black Box of Dynamic Capabilities

ABSTRACTA major challenge for managers in turbulent environments is to make sound decisions quickly. Dynamic capabilities have been proposed as a means for addressing turbulent environments by helping managers extend, modify, and reconfigure existing operational capabilities into new ones that better match the environment. However, because dynamic capabilities have been viewed as an elusive black box, it is difficult for managers to make sound decisions in turbulent environments if they cannot effectively measure dynamic capabilities. Therefore, we first seek to propose a measurable model of dynamic capabilities by conceptualizing, operationalizing, and measuring dynamic capabilities. Specifically, drawing upon the dynamic capabilities literature, we identify a set of capabilities—sensing the environment, learning, coordinating, and integrating—that help reconfigure existing operational capabilities into new ones that better match the environment. Second, we propose a structural model where dynamic capabilities influence performance by reconfiguring existing operational capabilities in the context of new product development (NPD). Data from 180 NPD units support both the measurable model of dynamic capabilities and also the structural model by which dynamic capabilities influence performance in NPD by reconfiguring operational capabilities, particularly in higher levels of environmental turbulence. The study's implications for managerial decision making in turbulent environments by capturing the elusive black box of dynamic capabilities are discussed.

The effects of a project's social capital, leadership style, modularity, and diversification on new product development performance

Due to the rapid advances in information technology and the dynamic business environment, firms are facing more and more competitive challenges. To overcome this, many companies are trying to create new products to maintain their competitiveness. This study aims to explore the key success factors of New Product Development (NPD) performance from the perspectives of social capital, leadership, modularity and diversification of project team members. Therefore, the major research objective of this study is to develop a comprehensive research framework to integrate the effects of social capital, project leadership style, modularity, team member diversification, and NPD performance. Interviewing 500 senior leaders of NPD teams from different manufacturing firms in Taiwan, this study found that: (1) a higher level of participating and selling style of leaderships with a higher level of social capital generate better NPD performance, (2) a higher modularity level of a new product results in better NPD performance, and (3) team member diversification, however, does not have significant impacts on NPD performance. The managerial implications, limitations and future research directions of this work are also provided. Key words: NPD performance, modularity, leadership style, social capital, project team diversity.

Measuring supplier performance in collaborative design: proposition of a framework

With the rapid increase of component outsourcing, suppliers play more important roles in New Product Development (NPD) projects. Previous research has shown that the selection of the appropriate supplier, as well as the choice of both the time and the degree of its involvement, have a major impact on NPD performance. However, the customer firms involved in this activity of collaborative design with suppliers express a need for methods and tools in order to effectively manage these particular relations. This paper presents a framework for the measurement of supplier's performance in the context of NPD projects. This framework has been supported by evidence from the literature and feedbacks from practitioners. It has been developed iteratively by application of an action research approach conducted within six industrial French companies. This development enabled the generation of a robust framework that allows: (a) identifying four main areas of performance expected by the customer in collaborative setting and (b) evaluating suppliers' development efforts throughout the NPD project with appropriate criteria for each stage of the project.

Comparing ANFIS and SEM in linear and nonlinear forecasting of new product development performance

Though the hi-tech industry has focused on value innovation and improving the quality of the new product development (NPD) process to drive new product performance, new product success has not changed dramatically over the years. This study presents a novel approach based on structural equation modeling (SEM) and adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) to forecast value innovation and the effects of the quality of the NPD process on NPD performance. Results demonstrate that value innovation directly affects NPD performance as well as the nonlinear relationships between the quality of NPD processes and NPD performance, and that ANFIS achieves better forecasting performance than the SEM technique. The ANFIS model effectively explains the nonlinear relationships that SEM cannot. This paper thus offers a new perspective on forecasting and modeling useful to both researchers and practitioners.

The Performance of Technical Information Transfer in New Product Development

The performance of new product development (NPD) is greatly affected by communication strategy and the information technology tools used to support the strategy. A number of users of NPD processes claim that an adequate communication strategy decreases their product cycle time and cost. However, the problem with evaluating the impact of information transfer is that no one has ever specifically measured how performant communication strategies are, or how effective information transfer tools are. For this purpose, a model was developed to evaluate communication strategies, and a set of communication measurement tools was identified to gauge the efficiency of information transfer. This study examines communication within NPD processes at three companies and measures how well information was transmitted, stored, and retrieved. The results indicate that a shorter, more efficient communication process reduces time and effort, and that a shift toward formal methods and passive information tools (computer-based systems) results in more effective and easier coordination as well as better integration.

The effects of organizational factors on green new product success

PurposeThis study seeks to identify the factors influencing the performance of green new product development. Additionally, an examination of the relationship between green performance and financial performance is carried out.Design/methodology/approachThe study employed survey instrument data collected from 181 companies in hi‐tech industries including electrical, electronics, and information industries of Taiwan. Exploratory factor analysis and multiple regressions were used for hypothesis testing.FindingsCorporate environmental commitment, environmental benchmarking, R&D strength, and cross‐functional integration significantly positively influenced financial performance. Additionally, green product innovation performance has a positive effect on financial performance.Research limitations/implicationsA longitudinal research design is necessary to validate these claims of causality. Furthermore, since respondents provided data on both the independent and dependent variables, there is the possibility that the correlations were inflated as a result of single‐source bias.Practical implicationsThe identification of the specific actions of both top management support and environmental benchmarking must be implemented for green new product development to occur. Additionally, successful GNPD needs to be underpinned by an environmental product strategy that is explicit, clearly defined, and linked to the overall strategy of the firm.Social implicationsTaiwan's rapid industrialization has generated numerous environmental problems. Moving forward, the Taiwanese government should implement advanced green management concepts to keep abreast of the global environmental movement. Enterprises have to be dedicated to developing GNPD; achieving GNPD success will bring great challenges for firms in Taiwan.Originality/valueThe integration of innovation, new product development, and green management philosophies is explored in order to develop and empirically test a theoretical framework of the organizational factors. This paper is the first to conduct a large sample survey of the hi‐tech industries including the electrical, electronics, and information industries in Taiwan to examine organizational factor effects on GNPD success, and the relationship between green product innovation performance and financial performance.

Sales, Marketing, and Research-and-Development Cooperation across New Product Development Stages: Implications for Success

Prior research has identified the integration of marketing with research and development (R&D) as a key success factor for new product development (NPD). However, prior work has not distinguished the sales and marketing functions, even though they are distinctive departments within an organization. Therefore, the authors extend prior research and examine the effect of cross-functional cooperation among sales, marketing, and R&D on NPD performance across multiple stages of the NPD process. The authors use multiple-informant data from 424 sales, marketing, and R&D managers as well as project leaders of 106 NPD projects to test several hypotheses. The results show that the cooperation between sales and R&D and between sales and marketing has a significant, positive effect on overall NPD project performance beyond marketing–R&D cooperation. The authors also find that the effect of cross-functional cooperation among sales, marketing, and R&D on overall NPD project performance varies across stages of the NPD process. More specifically, the authors find that sales–R&D cooperation in the concept and product development stages is critical for greater new product success. Sales–marketing cooperation is important in the concept development stage but has surprisingly less impact in the implementation stage.

Sales, Marketing, and Research-and-Development Cooperation Across New Product Development Stages: Implications for Success

Abstract Prior research has identified the integration of marketing with research and development (R&D) as a key success factor for new product development (NPD). However, prior work has not distinguished the sales and marketing functions, even though they are distinctive departments within an organization. Therefore, the authors extend prior research and examine the effect of cross-functional cooperation among sales, marketing, and R&D on NPD performance across multiple stages of the NPD process. The authors use multiple-informant data from 424 sales, marketing, and R&D managers as well as project leaders of 106 NPD projects to test several hypotheses. The results show that the cooperation between sales and R&D and between sales and marketing has a significant, positive effect on overall NPD project performance beyond marketing–R&D cooperation. The authors also find that the effect of cross-functional cooperation among sales, marketing, and R&D on overall NPD project performance varies across stages of t...

Market Vision and Market Visioning Competence: Impact on Early Performance for Radically New, High‐Tech Products*

Having the “right” market vision (MV) in new product scenarios involving high degrees of uncertainty has been shown to help firms achieve a significant competitive advantage, which can ultimately lead to superior financial results. Despite today's increased rate of radical innovation, and hence the importance of effective vision, relatively little research has been undertaken to improve our understanding of this phenomenon. The exploratory and empirical investigation undertaken herewith responds to this research gap by focusing on MV and its precursor, market visioning competence (MVC), for radically new, high-tech products. MV is a clear and specific mental model/image that organizational members have of a desired and important product-market for a new advanced technology, and MVC is a set of individual and organizational capabilities that enable the linking of advanced technologies to a future market opportunity. Based on samples of high-tech firms involved in early technology developments, the measurement study indicates that five factors comprise MV (i.e., clarity, magnetism, specificity, form, and scope) and that four factors underlie MVC (i.e., networking, idea driving, proactive market orientation, and market learning tools). Structural equation modeling is used to demonstrate that MVC significantly and positively impacts MV and that each of these constructs significantly and positively influences certain aspects of early performance (EP) in new product development. This is the first empirical study to develop a comprehensive set of scales to measure these constructs and then to combine them in a model by which to examine their interrelationships.

The Role of Globalization in New Product Development

Research has long emphasized the importance of the development of new products for global markets. However, despite the increasing interest of firms in developing such products, we do not know empirically how such development impacts the performance of new product development (NPD) programs. Addressing this research gap in the literature, this study proposes and tests a series of hypotheses about the relationship between the development of new products with a global market focus and the performance of NPD programs, and investigates various organizational, procedural, and operational conditions that may moderate this relationship. The results of an empirical study indicate that the development of new products with a global market focus was positively related to the financial performance of NPD programs, and this relationship was stronger when firms used a cross-functional organizational structure in NPD and an NPD process. In addition, these results suggest that such development was positively related to the rate of new product introduction, and this relationship was stronger when firms used an NPD process. Finally, contrary to our theoretical expectations, these relationships were not moderated by firms' engagement in the fuzzy front-end NPD activities.

The Impact of Misalignment of Organizational Structure and Product Architecture on Quality in Complex Product Development

Product architecture and organizational communication play significant roles in complex product development efforts. By using networks to characterize both product structure and communication patterns, we examine the impact of mismatches between these on new product development (NPD) performance. Specifically, we study the vehicle development process of a major auto company and use vehicle quality (warranty repairs) as our NPD performance metric. Our empirical results indicate that centrality in a product architecture network is related to quality according to an inverted-U relationship, which suggests that vehicle subsystems of intermediate complexity exhibit abnormally high levels of quality problems. To identify specific subsystems in danger of excessive quality problems, we characterize mismatches between product architecture and organizational structure by defining a new metric, called coordination deficit, and show that it is positively associated with quality problems. These results deepen our understanding of the impact of organizational structure and product architecture on the NPD process and provide tools with which managers can diagnose and improve their NPD systems.

An Exploratory Model of Interpersonal Cohesiveness in New Product Development Teams

There has been a heavy emphasis in new product development (NPD) research on intrateam issues such as communication, trust, and conflict management. Interpersonal cohesiveness, however, has received scant attention. In addition, there are conflicting findings regarding the effects of close-knit teams, which seem to have a beneficial effect up to a point, after which the tight bond becomes a detriment. This paper addresses these issues by introducing an exploratory model of interpersonal cohesiveness→NPD performance that includes antecedents, consequences, and moderating factors. Antecedents of interpersonal cohesiveness include clan culture, formalization, integration, and political dominance of one department, while consequences are groupthink, superordinate identity, and, ultimately, external/internal new product (NP) performance. The relationships among interpersonal cohesiveness, groupthink, and superordinate identity appear to be influenced by two moderating factors: team norms and goal support. Additionally, product type is identified as a moderator on the effects of both groupthink and superordinate identity on external NP performance. The model is built from two sources: a synthesis of the literature in small group dynamics and NPD, and qualitative research conducted across 12 NPD teams. Individual team leaders were interviewed first, followed by interviews with two additional members on each team, for a total of 36 interviews. In keeping with the goals of qualitative research, the interviews and analysis were used to identify and define aspects of interpersonal cohesiveness rather than to test a preconceived model. Representation of different industries and product types was sought intentionally, and variance in NP innovativeness as well as in NP market success/profitability became key criteria in sample selection. The exploratory model and propositions developed in this study provide a framework for understanding the role of interpersonal cohesiveness in NPD teams and its direct and indirect effects on NP performance. Although a significant amount of research on cohesiveness has been conducted in previous studies of small groups, the narrow laboratory settings of that research have limited the generalizability of the findings. This study therefore serves as a useful starting point for future theory development involving interpersonal cohesiveness in NPD. It also provides a guide for managers in dealing with team cohesiveness.

The performance impact of post-M&A interdepartmental integration: An empirical analysis

This study investigates how post-M&A interdepartmental integration affects the efficiency and effectiveness of new product development (NPD).The total sample size was 251 respondents. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) were used for statistical analysis. Analytical results indicate that, although collaboration interdepartmental integration positively correlates with product vision, interaction interdepartmental interaction integration does not reach a significant level. Despite the fact that some interaction is essential when developing new product competitive advantage (NPCA), such interaction does not necessarily achieve success. Further, product vision positively correlates with new product competitive advantage and NPD performance, and new product competitive advantage positively correlates with NPD performance. In addition, an examination of the mediation effect in terms of Sobel t-test reveals that product vision is a significant mediator for the influence of interdepartmental integration on new product competitive advantage, while the new product competitive advantage is also a significant mediator for the influence of interdepartmental integration on NPD performance. Moreover, this study provides a framework for managing post-M&A integration and closes with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of the research findings.

Team Empowerment, Uncertainty, and Performance in New Product Development

Team Empowerment, Uncertainty, and Performance in New Product Development

Developing a self-assessment model for measuring new product development performance: an AHP approach

This paper identified a list of twenty-one elements under seven performance criteria as advocated in literature that affect new product development (NPD) practices and performance in industry. Incorporating the findings of interviews with industry practitioners and experts in Hong Kong, a generic self-assessment model of NPD performance was developed using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) methodology. It was found that 'results orientation', 'customer focus' and 'strategy' constituted to the most important criteria. With the aid of the HP software, the collected data was analysed, and the relative importance of performance criteria and elements was computed. The point values for scoring criteria and sub-elements of model were devised using the normalised weights of empirical findings obtained from the AHP analysis. This paper contributes to identifying the performance criteria and developing the assessment model for managing NPD in industry. Further research is needed to investigate the applicability of the self-assessment model.

Achieving sustained innovation performance through strategic flexibility of new product development

Sustained innovation performance is traditionally measured in terms of New Product Development (NPD) Strategic Flexibility (SF), which is defined as the readiness to adapt to, anticipate or create future NPD performance requirements. SF is seen as a prerequisite to NPD Operational Effectiveness (OE). This article analyses the innovation performance and NPD portfolio balance of more than 200 companies in Australia, Belgium, Denmark, The Netherlands, Finland, Spain, Norway and Turkey. A factor analysis leads us to suggest that SF actually is only made possible in practice by OE and quality of market information; both of these factors thus jointly lead to sustained innovation. Also, we suggest that flexible strategies are the best choices for current Western business environments such as our sample. Further analyses and some clarifying case studies will be conducted to strengthen or reject either of these propositions.

An AHP approach to assess new product development performance: An exploratory study

Managing new product development (NPD) becomes crucial for manufacturers particularly those small and mediumsized enterprises (SMEs) to survive in today’s competitive marketplaces. This paper is geared toward the development of generic self-assessment model for SMEs to determine their performance in NPD practices. It reviews a list of sixteen elements under five decision areas as advocated in literature that affect NPD practices. Incorporated the findings of focus group interviews with industry practitioners and experts, a self-assessment model of NPD performance is devised using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) approach. The conduct of the exploratory study is presented to illustrate how the decision/performance criteria be prioritised and the scoring guidelines be established. It is anticipated that the findings would drive the self-assessment initiatives of NPD in SMEs and provide them with a feasible means to amalgamate strategies and actions. Further research is needed to investigate into the applicability of the model with empirical evidence in industry.

Collaboration practices, strategic capabilities and performance in Japanese and American product development: Do they differ?

Do New Product Development (NPD) collaboration practices differ across national subsets and, if so, does this make a difference to overall NPD performance? To address these questions, we studied the NPD programs of both Japanese and American firms and explored whether there are differences between the use of internal and external collaboration and strategic innovation practices. We further examined whether this had any significant effects on overall program performance. We found that the American firms we surveyed used collaboration practices significantly more often than the Japanese firms. However, when taking all factors into consideration, only strategic innovation capabilities were significantly linked with both overall performance and nationality. Thus, the use of collaboration without developing innovation capabilities is not enough for performance effects.