Best new product development and management practices in the Korean high-tech industry

This paper investigates critical factors affecting the likelihood of new product success and effective new product development (NPD) models for Korean high-tech firms. Empirical results suggest that successful projects differ from unsuccessful projects in project environment, skills and resources, project leadership, strategic fit, efficient NPD process, and effective product-positioning strategies.This study confirmed that efficient and effective new product development and management were important determinants of high-tech firms' competitive advantage. Furthermore, the findings of this study raised questions about some commonly held beliefs when compared with Western studies focusing on high-tech industries.     

Antecedents and Consequences of Information Technology Usage in NPD: A Comparison of Dutch and U.S. Companies*

This study examines information technology (IT) usage for new product development (NPD) in a global context. Specifically, this research seeks to ascertain the factors that influence IT usage and the relationship between IT usage and new product performance in two different countries—the United States and the Netherlands. The interest here is in discovering if, and how, these relationships may be different depending on the country within which the NPD effort is undertaken. Employing a mail survey methodology, the present study uses data from a sample of U.S. practitioner members from the Product Development & Management Association (PDMA) and new product managers from Dutch manufacturing companies to examine the effect of IT infrastructure, IT embeddedness, NPD process formalization, colocation, outsourcing of NPD projects, and length of time on the job on the extent of IT usage. The data are also used to explore the impact of IT usage on speed to market and market performance. The results indicate that IT embeddedness and NPD process formalization positively influence IT usage in both the United States and the Netherlands. Colocation and length of time on the job are negatively associated with IT usage only in Dutch firms. Similarly, outsourcing of NPD projects is positively related to IT usage only in U.S. firms. Finally, IT usage has a positive relationship with speed to market in the Netherlands and with market performance in the United States. An important implication of the present study is that IT usage does impact speed to market and market performance, confirming anecdotal evidence. However, these relationships are not the same in each country. Moreover, the antecedents to IT usage also vary by country. Thus, the precursors and consequences of IT usage in NPD are context specific. Another implication of this research is that unless IT is embedded into the NPD process, it is unlikely that the benefits of IT will come to fruition. Finally, this study suggests that as firms use more globally dispersed teams for NPD and outsource more of their development activities, IT usage is likely to increase to facilitate communication and cooperation.     

Managing New Product Development Teams in a Globally Dispersed NPD Program

Globalization is a major market trend today, one characterized by both increased international competition as well as extensive opportunities for firms to expand their operations beyond current boundaries. Effectively dealing with this important change, however, makes the management of global new product development (NPD) a major concern. To ensure success in this complex and competitive endeavor, companies must rely on global NPD teams that make use of the talents and knowledge available in different parts of the global organization. Thus, cohesive and well‐functioning global NPD teams become a critical capability by which firms can effectively leverage this much more diverse set of perspectives, experiences, and cultural sensitivities for the global NPD effort. The present research addresses the global NPD team and its impact on performance from both an antecedent and a contingency perspective. Using the resource‐based view (RBV) as a theoretical framework, the study clarifies how the internal, or behavioral, environment of the firm—specifically, resource commitment and senior management involvement—and the global NPD team are interrelated and contribute to global NPD program performance. In addition, the proposed performance relationships are viewed as being contingent on certain explicit, or strategic, factors. In particular, the degree of global dispersion of the firm's NPD effort is seen as influencing the management approach and thus altering the relationships among company background resources, team, and performance. For the empirical analysis, data are collected through a survey of 467 corporate global new product programs (North America and Europe, business‐to‐business). A structural model testing for the hypothesized effects was substantially supported. The results show that creating and effectively managing global NPD teams offers opportunities for leveraging a diverse but unique combination of talents and knowledge‐based resources, thereby enhancing the firm's ability to achieve a sustained competitive advantage in international markets. To function effectively, the global NPD team must be nested in a corporate environment in which there is a commitment of sufficient resources and where senior management plays an active role in leading, championing, and coordinating the global NPD effort. This need for commitment and global team integration becomes even more important for success as the NPD effort becomes more globally dispersed.     

New Product Development Practices and Early‐Stage Firms: Two In‐Depth Case Studies

New product development practices (NPD) have been well studied for decades in large, established companies. Implementation of best practices such as predevelopment market planning and cross‐functional teams have been positively correlated with product and project success over a variety of measures. However, for small new ventures, field research into ground‐level adoption of NPD practices is lacking. Because of the risks associated with missteps in new product development and the potential for firm failure, understanding NPD within the new venture context is critical. Through in‐depth case research, this paper investigates two successful physical product‐based early‐stage firms' development processes versus large established firm norms. The research focuses on the start‐up adoption of commonly prescribed management processes to improve NPD, such as cross‐functional teams, use of market planning during innovation development, and the use of structured processes to guide the development team. This research has several theoretical implications. The first finding is that in comparing the innovation processes of these firms to large, established firms, the study found several key differences from the large firm paradigm. These differences in development approach from what is prescribed for large, established firms are driven by necessity from a scarcity of resources. These new firms simply did not have the resources (financial or human) to create multi‐ or cross‐functional teams or organizations in the traditional sense for their first product. Use of virtual resources was pervasive. Founders also played multiple roles concurrently in the organization, as opposed to relying on functional departments so common in large firms. The NPD process used by both firms was informal—much more skeletal than commonly recommended structured processes. The data indicated that these firms put less focus on managing the process and more emphasis on managing their goals (the main driver being getting the first product to market). In addition to little or no written procedures being used, development meetings did not run to specific paper‐based deliverables or defined steps. In terms of market and user insight, these activities were primarily performed inside the core team—using methods that again were distinctive in their approach. What drove a project to completion was relying on team experience or a “learn as you go approach.” Again, the driver for this type of truncated market research approach was a lack of resources and need to increase the project's speed‐to‐market. Both firms in our study were highly successful, from not only an NPD efficiency standpoint but also effectiveness. The second broad finding we draw from this work is that there are lessons to be learned from start‐ups for large, established firms seeking ever‐increasing efficiency. We have found that small empowered teams leading projects substantial in scope can be extremely effective when roles are expanded, decision power is ground‐level, and there is little emphasis on defined processes. This exploratory research highlights the unique aspects of NPD within small early‐stage firms, and highlights areas of further research and management implications for both small new ventures and large established firms seeking to increase NPD efficiency and effectiveness.     

Performance of Global New Product Development Programs: A Resource-Based View

Gaining a competitive edge in today's turbulent business environment calls for a commitment by firms to two highly interrelated strategies: globalization and new product development (NPD). Although much research has focused on how companies achieve NPD success, little of this deals with NPD in the global setting. The authors use resource‐based theory (RBT)—a model emphasizing the resources and capabilities of the firm as primary determinants of competitive advantage—to explain how companies involved in international NPD realize superior performance. The capabilities RBT model is used to test how firms achieve superior performance by deploying organizational capabilities to take advantage of key organizational resources relevant for developing new products for global markets. Specifically, the study evaluates (1) organizational NPD resources (i.e., the firm's global innovation culture, attitude to resource commitment, top‐management involvement, and NPD process formality); (2) NPD process capabilities or routines for identifying and exploiting new product opportunities (i.e., global knowledge integration, NPD homework activities, and launch preparation); and (3) global NPD program performance. Based on data from 387 global NPD programs (North America and Europe, business‐to‐business), a structural model testing for the hypothesized mediation effects of NPD process capabilities on organizational NPD resources was largely supported. The findings indicate that all four resources considered relevant for effective deployment of global NPD process capabilities play a significant role. Specifically, a positive attitude toward resource commitment as well as NPD process formality is essential for the effective deployment of the three NPD process routines linked to achieving superior global NPD program performance; a strong global innovation culture is needed for ensuring effective global knowledge integration; and top‐management involvement plays a key role in deploying both knowledge integration and launch preparation. Of the three NPD process capabilities, global knowledge integration is the most important, whereas homework and launch preparation also play a significant role in bringing about global NPD program success. Tests for partial mediation suggest that too much process formality may be negative and that top‐management involvement requires careful focus.     

Success Through Customer-Driven New Product Development: A Comparison of U.S. and New Zealand Small Entrepreneurial High Technology Firms

Although high-tech, entrepreneurial firms may be small in size, they often play a large role in developing innovative products and thus spurring economic growth. Managers from firms of all sizes may gain useful insights by examining the new-product development (NPD) practices of these small, technology-based firms. And in an era of increasingly global competition, those managers can benefit from understanding the NPD practices of firms from various countries. William Souder, David Buisson, and Tony Garrett contribute to that understanding by describing the results of a study that compares the relative NPD proficiency of small, technology-based firms in the United States and New Zealand. The firms participating in the study (26 from the U.S. and 29 from N.Z.) operate in rapidly growing, highly competitive markets characterized by evolving customer needs. The participating companies share similar goals: creating technically superior products with unique features for emerging markets, with the ultimate goal of becoming the product and market leaders within their respective industries. Despite these similarities, the study reveals several important differences between the U.S. and N.Z. participants. Overall, the N.Z. respondents had higher levels of NPD performance than those of their U.S. counterparts. In particular, the relationship marketing and customer-focused NPD practices of the N.Z. firms set them apart from the U.S. firms. Top-level managers from the N.Z. participants report higher levels of satisfaction than their U.S. counterparts with the results of their NPD efforts. The results of the study indicate that repondents from the two countries differ in terms of the focus of their NPD mangement systems and the manner in which they strive to achieve success. For the U.S. firms in the study, their NPD management systems focus on the characteristics of the project manager. The N.Z. respondents place greater emphasis on marketing skills and NPD proficiencies. The results suggest that the higher levels of NPD performance acheived by the N.Z. firms in the study arise from greater insights into their users' needs, together with better capabilities for acting on those insights.     

Analyses of U.S. and Japanese Management Processes Associated with New Product Success and Failure in High and Low Familiarity Markets

As detailed in the pages of JPIM and other publications, considerable research effort has been devoted to identifying the preconditions for new product success. Studies of Japanese and U.S. new product development (NPD) practices have shown that such factors as sales and marketing expertise, technical expertise, decentralized decision making, R&D/marketing integration, project manager competency, and support from senior management can play key roles in influencing new product success. As William Souder and X. Michael Song point out, however, previous studies have not examined Japanese management practices across a range of environments. They also suggest that the similarities and differences between U.S. and Japanese NPD practices require more in-depth exploration. To help address these issues, they describe the results of a study involving 15 U.S. firms and 15 Japanese firms. Each participating firm provided information about two successful products and two unsuccessful products. Their conceptual model groups the various factors that influence new product success into three general classes: NPD climate, expertise, and management functions. In this model, a firm's level of familiarity with its target market moderates these influences. For example, greater expertise may be necessary to succeed in an unfamiliar market. Each participating firm in the study provided information about one successful product and one failure targeted for high familiarity markets; the other two products from each firm were targeted for low familiarity markets. The U.S. and Japanese models developed in this study exhibit some marked differences from one another. In a familiar market, the U.S. model emphasizes sales and marketing expertise and competent project managers. Under conditions of low market familiarity, this basic model is supplemented with high degrees of R&D/marketing integration, senior management involvement, and decentralization. In this way, the U.S. models reflect a degree of flexibility in adapting the approach to match the prevailing market conditions. In contrast, the two Japanese models of new product success (under low and high familiarity) point to a more invariant system. In other words, the findings from this study reinforce the notion that successful management of NPD requires careful consideration of the firm's environment. Practices that have been proven successful in a particular culture and market environment may not be directly transferable to another setting.     

What Separates Japanese New Product Winners from Losers

Operating in the upper echelons of highly competitive, global markets, numerous Japanese firms enjoy well-deserved reputations for excellence in new product development. Despite this success, however, almost no research has been conducted to explore the keys to successful new product development in Japanese companies. For the most part, research in this area has focused on North American and European firms. X. Michael Song and Mark E. Parry address this gap with a study of 404 Japanese firms and 788 new product introductions. Their research explores the links between new product success and 10 factors: product advantage; marketing synergy; technological synergy; market potential; market competitiveness; market and technical understanding; senior management support; proficiency in the predevelopment planning process and in concept development and evaluation; proficiency in market research, market pretesting, and market launch; and technical proficiency. To avoid any cultural bias, development of the survey was preceded by in-depth case studies and focus group interviews with Japanese and American new product development teams. Although time-consuming and expensive, these preliminary steps were necessary for ensuring the validity of the survey contents and procedures. Notwithstanding the obvious cultural differences, the findings from this study suggest that Japanese new products professionals view the keys to success in much the same way as their North American counterparts. For the survey respondents, the most important success factor is product advantage. Other important success factors include predevelopment proficiency (that is, proficiency in the predevelopment planning process as well as in concept definition and evaluation) and marketing and technological synergy. Consistent with previous research on North American firms, market competitiveness was found to be the least important success factor. For managers who are trying to predict whether a project will result in a product advantage, several survey items may be useful as a checklist for assessing potential product advantage. In particular, these managers should consider whether the product offers potential for reducing consumer costs and expanding consumer capabilities, as well as the likelihood that the product offers improved quality, superior technical performance, and a superior benefit-to-cost ratio.     

An investigation of the use of global, virtual, and colocated new product development teams

This paper presents the results of an investigation of differences between global, virtual and colocated new product development (NPD) teams. Specifically, we examined whether and how these three types of teams differed in terms of usage, challenges, and performance. A survey of PDMA members was undertaken to collect the data. Out of 103 firms participating in the survey, 54 had used or were using global teams for some of their NPD efforts. Overall, we found that the use of global teams in our respondent firms is rapidly increasing. Our respondents indicated that by the year 2001, approximately one out of every five NPD teams in their companies are likely to be global. However, our respondents also expect that their companies will be using multiple types of teams that is, global, virtual, and colocated, to develop their new products. Our findings also suggest that global teams generally face greater behavioral and project management challenges than either colocated or virtual teams. Global team performance is also lower than the performance of virtual or colocated teams. Are these challenges associated with poorer performance? In examining this question, our results suggest that greater project management challenges are associated with lower performance, for all three types of teams. Surprisingly, behavioral challenges were not associated with performance for any team type. Our results suggest that firms face different problems associated with managing each type of NPD team—global, virtual and colocated. To effectively manage each type of team may, in turn, require that companies and their managers employ different solutions to these different problems. Additionally, companies may find that the preparation they provide to their managers and team members to work in these different team environments may also need to be different. Further research is clearly needed to address these managerial implications.     

Industrial Companies' Evaluation Criteria in New Product Development Gates

This article presents the results of a study on the evaluation criteria that companies use at several gates in the NPD process. The findings from 166 managers suggest that companies use different criteria at different NPD evaluation gates. While such criteria as technical feasibility, intuition and market potential are stressed in the early‐screening gates of the NPD process, a focus on product performance, quality, and staying within the development budget are considered of paramount importance after the product has been developed. During and after commercialization, customer acceptance and satisfaction and unit sales are primary considerations. In addition, based on the performance dimensions developed by Griffin and Page (1993), we derive patterns of use of various evaluative dimensions at the NPD gates. Our results show that while the market acceptance dimension permeates evaluation at all the gates in the NPD process, the financial dimension is especially important during the business analysis gate and after‐market launch. The product performance dimension figures strongly in the product and market testing gates. The importance of our additional set of criteria (i.e., product uniqueness, market potential, market chance, technical feasibility, and intuition) decreases as the NPD process unfolds. Overall the above pattern of dimensions' usage holds true for both countries in which we collected our data, and across firms of different sizes, holding different market share positions, with different NPD drivers, following different innovation strategies, and developing different types of new products. The results also are stable for respondents that differ in terms of expertise and functional background. The results of this study provide useful guidelines for project selection and evaluation purposes and therefore can be helpful for effective investment decision‐making at gate‐meetings and for project portfolio management. We elaborate on these guidelines for product developers and marketers wishing to employ evaluation criteria in their NPD gates, and we discuss directions for further research.     

The Impact of Organizational Integration and Product Development Proficiency on Market Success

This research investigates three major hypotheses important to new product market success: the greater organizational integration during the development of new products, the greater the market success; the greater organizational integration during the development of new products, the greater new product development proficiency; and the greater new product development proficiency, the greater the market success. “Organizational integration” is defined as the degree of cooperation and communication between internal and external NPD “support” groups and NPD teams. “NPD process proficiency” is defined as how well new product development stages and the new product development process as a whole is performed. “New product market success” is represented by four measures: the degree to which profits and sales exceeded or fell short of what was expected, and the degree to which the new product was perceived to exceed or fall short of expectations related to entering existing and new markets. Information was obtained concerning the most and least successful new products of U.S. firms in the medical instruments, the electrical equipment, and the heavy construction equipment industries. The field survey approach was utilized in which surveys were mailed to recipients such as new product development managers who already had been designated by executives of the sample firms. Several important findings were uncovered during this research. Overall organizational integration was found to be significantly associated with new product market success. Internal integration, the coordination between new product development teams and functional departments, was found to be significantly related to product market success. A significant relationship between new product development proficiency during the NPD “post-launch stage” and the degree of integration between an NPD team and external NPD organizations, such as customers and suppliers, was detected. During the post-launch stage, new product development proficiency also was found to be significantly related to new product market success. These findings suggest several important implications for new product development managers and scholars.     

The Roles of Sustainability Orientation and Market Knowledge Competence in New Product Development Success

Firms’ sustainability orientation (SO) is widely understood as a strategic resource, which can lead to competitive advantage and superior (financial) performance. While recent empirical evidence suggests a moderate and positive relationship between SO and financial performance on a corporate level, little is understood about the influence of SO on new product development (NPD) success. Building on the natural‐resource‐based view (NRBV) of the firm, we hypothesize that firms’ SO positively influences NPD success, because of efficiency gains and differentiation advantages. However, scholars have also argued that the win–win paradigm postulated by NRBV might not always hold because NPD managers might find it difficult to balance sustainability objectives with the needs of their customer and the competitive dynamics in their markets. It is, therefore, proposed that market knowledge competence (MKC) is an important capability, which helps firms to balance social and ecological objectives with economic goals such as profitability and market share. Using data from 343 international firms from 24 countries that was collected by the Product Development and Management Association, structural equation modeling results suggest that (1) SO positively influences NPD and that (2) this relationship is partially mediated by firms’ market knowledge capabilities. The findings suggest that strategic‐level SO and MKC are complementary in that they help in balancing trade‐offs between sustainaility objectives and profitability goals. In this way, the study contributes to a better understanding of how critical NPD practices can help managers to translate firms’ SO into NPD success. The article concludes by highlighting implications for product innovation managers.     

Success in Global New Product Development: Impact of Strategy and the Behavioral Environment of the Firm

Product innovation and the trend toward globalization are two important dimensions driving business today, and a firm's global new product development (NPD) strategy is a primary determinant of performance. Succeeding in this competitive and complex market arena calls for corporate resources and strategies by which firms can effectively tackle the challenges and opportunities associated with international NPD. Based on the resource‐based view (RBV) and the entrepreneurial strategic posture (ESP) literature, the present study develops and tests a model that emphasizes the resources of the firm as primary determinants of competitive advantage and, thus, of superior performance through the strategic initiatives that these enable. In the study, global NPD programs are assessed in terms of three dimensions: (1) the organizational resources or behavioral environment of the firm relevant for international NPD—specifically, the global innovation culture of the firm and senior management involvement in the global NPD effort; (2) the global NPD strategies (i.e., global presence strategy and global product harmonization strategy) chosen for expanding and exploiting opportunities in international markets; and (3) global NPD program performance in terms of shorter‐ and longer‐term outcome measures. These are modeled in antecedent terms, where the impact of the resources on performance is mediated by the NPD strategy of the firm. Based on data from 432 corporate global new product programs (North America and Europe, business‐to‐business, services and goods), a structural model testing for the hypothesized mediation effects was substantially supported. Specifically, having an organizational posture that, at once, values innovation plus globalization, as well as a senior management that is active in and supports the international NPD effort leads to strategic choices that are focused on making the firm truly global in terms of both market coverage and product offering. Further, the two strategies—global presence and global product harmonization—were found to be significant mediators of the firm's behavioral environment in terms of impact on performance of global NPD programs.     

Driving-market or market-driven? A case study analysis of the new product development practices of Chinese business-to-business firms

Our current understanding of NPD processes among Chinese firms is limited. Early evidence suggests that the drivers of new product success in the PRC might be different to those in the West. Much of the more recent (Western) literature implicitly identifies the importance of both driving-market and market-driven approaches to NPD success, although what this translates into in practice is less clear. Drawing on multiple case studies, we identify four types of NPD practice in Chinese B2B firms and explore the reasons for variation in performance between the four. Critically, the most successful firms were found to be those characterised by a driving-market approach, rather than those relying solely on relationships and reacting to changing market phenomena.     

Examining Proactive Strategic Decision‐Making Flexibility in New Product Development

While strategic flexibility is widely accepted as a prerequisite for a firm's success, its application in strategic decision making to a firm's new product development (NPD) activities is limited to only a few studies. Furthermore, many organizations still have difficulties creating proactive strategic flexibility in their decision‐making processes. Past research studies have largely ignored the relationship between strategic decision‐making flexibility and firms' resources and/or capabilities and success in the context of NPD. This study advances strategic flexibility by adopting the proactive approach of NPD decision‐making flexibility and by examining its role in translating organizational resources and capabilities into NPD success. This study draws upon the resources, capabilities (i.e., flexibility), and performance framework to show how proactive strategic decision‐making flexibility plays a crucial role in developing new products that can create new opportunities and comply with market needs. Therefore, this research aims to (1) develop an operational definition of strategic decision‐making flexibility and (2) propose a framework to understand the drivers and the subsequent new product performance outcomes of strategic decision‐making flexibility. This study adopts the proactive perspective of strategic decision‐making flexibility and defines it as a capability that enables firms to develop NPD strategies to respond to future changes in the environment. The analysis, based on data collected from 103 European firms, shows that that the effects of long‐term orientation, strategic planning, internal commitment, and innovative climate on proactive strategic decision‐making flexibility are significant. The findings indicate specifically the roles of both champions and gatekeepers, who infuse a firm's knowledge with a clear understanding of its resources, constraints, and market needs, thereby enhancing decision makers' motivation to behave proactively to precipitate transformation. The results also reveal a positive association between proactive strategic decision‐making flexibility and NPD performance outcomes. As such, strategic flexibility provides firms with an ability to adapt to changing environments and to create new market opportunities, product, and technological arenas, and to deliver successful new products. When firms open new market, technological, and product arenas, they can easily foresee their new demands and changes and successfully deliver new products, meeting customer needs/demands, and offering benefits such as quality, cost, and timeliness. This study therefore provides a valuable reference point for future research in strategic decision‐making flexibility in NPD.     

Improving new product development using big data: a case study of an electronics company

Big data is becoming more important to the new product development (NPD) efforts of global firms. Although the term of big data is not new, very few studies have investigated how firms can harvest big data to facilitate NPD. The purpose of this article is to present the means by which big data can be used to assist firms in NPD to shorten the time to market, improving customers’ product adoption and reducing costs. This research is based on a two-step approach. First, we identified and analysed three world-leading firms that have successfully integrated big data in supporting their NPD. Then, the observations from the firms were used to determine the principle involved in leveraging big data to reduce product development lead times and costs. Given the exploratory nature of the research objective, a participant-observation case study is adopted in which during a 6-month period a NPD project in a fast moving high-tech industry was investigated. This study provides empirical confirmation for the three principles to big data supported NPD: (a) Autonomy; (b) Connection; and (c) Ecosystem. It is termed the ACE principles which we believe represent a paradigm shift to help firms unlock the power of big data and make NPD faster and less costly. This article provides guideline to firms in harvesting big data to better support their NPD: it allows organisations to launch new products to market as quickly as possible; it helps organisations to determine the weaknesses of the product earlier in the development cycle; it allows functionalities to be added to a product that customers are willing to pay a premium for, while eliminating features they do not want; and it identifies and then prioritises customer needs for specific markets.     

PERSPECTIVE: Trends and Drivers of Success in NPD Practices: Results of the 2003 PDMA Best Practices Study*

Since 1990, the Product Development & Management Association (PDMA) has sponsored best practice research projects to identify trends in new product development (NPD) management practices and to discern which practices are associated with higher degrees of success. The objective of this ongoing research is to assist managers in determining how to improve their own product development methods and practices. This paper presents results, recommendations, and implications for NPD practice stemming from PDMA's third best practices study, which was conducted in 2003. In the eight years since the previous best practices study was conducted, firms have become slightly more conservative in the portfolio of projects, with lower percentages of the total number of projects in the new‐to‐the‐world and new‐to‐the‐firm categories. Although success rates and development efficiencies have remained stable, this more conservative approach to NPD seems to have negatively impacted the sales and profits impact of the new products that have been commercialized. As formal processes for NPD are now the norm, attention is moving to managing the multiple projects across the portfolio in a more orchestrated manner. Finally, firms are implementing a wide variety of software support tools for various aspects of NPD. NPD areas still seriously in need of improved management include idea management, project leadership and training, cross‐functional training and team communication support, and innovation support and leadership by management. In terms of aspects of NPD management that differentiate the “best from the rest,” the findings indicate that the best firms emphasize and integrate their innovation strategy across all the levels of the firm, better support their people and team communications, conduct extensive experimentation, and use numerous kinds of new methods and techniques to support NPD. All companies appear to continue to struggle with the recording of ideas and making them readily available to others in the organization, even the best. What remains unclear is whether there is a preferable approach for organizing the NPD endeavor, as no one organizational approach distinguished top NPD performers.     

Firm Characteristics and NPD Program Success: The Significant Influence of Global Discovery Management

Managing new product development (NPD) with a global point of view is argued to be essential in current business more than ever. Accordingly, many firms are trying to revitalize their NPD processes to make them more global. Therefore, examining global NPD management is one of the top priorities for research. While scholars have examined global launch management, there has been scant attention on the direct effect of global discovery management on NPD success. Therefore, this study investigates how a globally managed discovery phase enhances a firm's overall NPD success. Drawing upon the resource‐based view (RBV) and using Kotabe's ( 1990 ) generic model for market success in global competition as the overarching framework, this study examines four drivers of NPD success: global discovery management, the firm's “global footprint,” its inbound knowledge sourcing practices (i.e., “open innovation proclivity”), and nationality of the teams (i.e., “cross‐national global NPD team use”). The hypotheses are tested using a sample of 255 business units from multiple industries, headquartered worldwide, and surveyed during the 2012 PDMA Comparative Performance Assessment Study (CPAS). The PLM‐SEM analyses show that, of the four drivers examined, only global discovery management strongly influences a firm's NPD program success. The findings enhance our understanding of the particularities in global NPD. Based on the study's results, suggestions are provided as to how multinationals can leverage their international operations in the course of their front‐end activities.     

Contingent Product Design and Marketing Strategies Influencing New Product Success and Failure in U.S. and Japanese Electronics Firms

The commercial success or failure of a product doesn't rest solely on the whims of the marketplace. The myriad, often interdependent, strategic trade-offs made throughout the product development process go a long way toward determining whether a product succeeds or fails. The key to success often rests in finding the right combination of product design and market choice decisions. Toward that end, William E. Souder and X. Michael Song examine the relationship between product success and several product design and market choice strategies. In particular, they explore the possibility that the correct strategy combination differs depending on a firm's perception of market uncertainty, which they measure in terms of the respondents' perceived familiarity with the market for a product, perceived understanding of customer needs, and perceived capability to translate those needs into product performance specifications. Recognizing that the correct combination of strategic choices may also depend on firm size, industry, and culture, the study focuses on small U.S. suppliers of electronics components. Fortune 500 producers of electronics final products, and Japanese producers of electronics final products. For the small U.S. firms in the study, an emphasis on performance superiority, technical superiority, or radically new products provides a recipe for failure under low market uncertainty. Even under high market uncertainty, these characteristics do not equate to success for the small U.S. firms in this study. The findings suggest that these firms should focus on design compatibility with a purchaser's installed base. The responses from Fortune 500 firms and Japanese companies indicate that under low market uncertainty these larger organizations should consider emphasizing compatibility and avoiding radical designs. For markets that the larger firms perceive to be highly uncertain, the results suggest that these companies should emphasize performance superiority, technical superiority, and radical designs. The findings related to market choice strategies also support the notion that the correct combination of strategic decisions depends on firm size, culture, and the perceived level of market uncertainty. However, the guidelines presented in this study should not be construed as hard-and-fast rules for formulating product strategy. Instead, the results presented here will be helpful for challenging assumptions and guiding actions, as one element in the effort to shape an effective product strategy.