Interdepartmental Integration: A Definition with Implications for Product Development Performance

Improved interdepartmental integration yields improved product development performance. But what do we mean by interdepartmental integration? Is it increased interaction between the various departments involved in product development—in other words, more meetings and other formal information flows between R&D marketing and manufacturing? Or is the term integration another way of saying collaboration—that is, various departments working collectively toward common goals? Or are collaboration and interaction both important elements of interdepartmental integration? Kenneth B. Kahn presents the results of a study exploring how collaboration and interaction affect product development performance and product management (post-launch) performance. Survey respondents are marketing, manufacturing, and R&D department managers working for firms in the electronics industry. It is hypothesized that both collaboration and interaction between departments will positively influence product development performance and product management performance. It is further hypothesized that collaboration will have a stronger effect than interaction. The survey responses indicate that collaboration has a strong, positive effect on performance. (The only exception is the effect of manufacturing managers' collaboration with marketing on product development success; the effect of this variable is not statistically significant). However, interaction does not have a significant effect on product development performance or product management performance. In fact, the responses indicate negative effects for meetings and the exchange of documented information. The results support increased emphasis on company policies that facilitate collaboration between departments as opposed to those that only stress meetings and documented information exchange. Although a certain level of interaction is necessary throughout the product development process, such interaction doesn't lead to success; collaboration makes the difference between success and failure. To best manage interdepartmental integration, managers should first assess their firm's levels of interdepartmental collaboration and interaction. The scales presented in this study can be used for this benchmarking effort. The results of this assessment can be used for developing and implementing an action plan for improving interdepartmental integration. For example, a manager faced with a prevailing interaction philosophy might seek to reduce the number of meetings or the amount of paperwork flowing between departments.     

Market orientation, interdepartmental integration, and product development performance

Various research studies have shown that a market orientation and interdepartmental integration can positively influence product development performance. Addressed in this article is whether market orientation and interdepartmental integration both equally influence product development performance, whether one of these constructs is more influential than the other, and whether such influence is dependent on the type of department being examined? Analyzing survey data from 156 marketing, manufacturing, and R&D managers, the tentative results suggest that a market orientation and interdepartmental integration correlate to improved product development and product management performance in varying degrees across these three manager sets. It appears that a positive relationship between market orientation and product development petformance is likely to be reflected by the marketing department, while marketing and manufacturing departments are likely to reflect a positive relationship between the general construct of market orientation and product management performance. Manufacturing managers also reflect a positive relationship between interdepartmental integration and product development and product management performance. Further analyses involving the elements of a market orientation and interdepartmental integration find that a customer orientation appears important to performance in the case of marketing managers, and that collaboration is important to performance in the case of manufacturing managers. R&D managers did not reflect any statistically significant relationships between market orientation, interdepartmental integration, their constructs, and performance. These results should not be taken as refuting the claim of an important relationship between market orientation and product development performance, however. The present results refine our understanding of market orientation to consider department‐specific effects, as well as temper the claims that implementing a market orientation will readily lead to improved product development performance across all departments in an organization. This may or may not be the case, depending on the focal department.     

Department Status: An Exploratory Investigation of Direct and Indirect Effects on Product Development Performance

To date only a limited number of product development studies have examined the construct of department status. These studies mostly report that departments can reflect different levels of status among themselves during product development activities and that often the marketing department reflects greater status. These studies do not clarify the role that department status may pose for product development performance and product management performance. Some research would suggest that department status has a direct effect on performance, while other research would suggest that department status has an indirect effect on performance. The present study investigates whether the bestowing of department status is important to product development performance and product management performance, and, if so, how? Based on empirical results from a cross‐industry study involving 668 marketing, manufacturing, and R&D managers, department status is found to have a significant indirect effect on product development and product management performance. Results further show that equal status among the three departments of marketing, manufacturing, and R&D correlates with higher levels of interdepartmental collaboration, which in turn manifests the benefits of higher levels of performance. Interdepartmental collaboration is therefore shown to be a mediating variable between department status and performance. The empirical results of this study suggest that no one department should dominate the product development effort and/or product management effort. While study data tend to correspond with prior studies in that the marketing department tends to reflect higher status compared to R&D and manufacturing, simply bestowing more status to marketing (or to another department for that matter) does not appear to be a proper course for facilitating interdepartmental collaboration nor for manifesting higher product development performance. Rather, equal status across marketing, manufacturing, and R&D departments appears to represent the proper course of action to establish collaboration between these three departments and subsequently to reap the benefits of higher performance. Given the exploratory nature of this study, subsequent study is warranted. Avenues for future research along with tentative managerial implications are discussed.     

The Impact of Cross-Functional Joint Involvement Across Product Development Stages: An Exploratory Study

Cross-functional integration offers numerous, well-documented benefits for new-product development (NPD), but it also can carry significant costs. Joint involvement of R&D, manufacturing, and marketing personnel can increase the quality, the manufacturability, and the marketability of the final product. However, building consensus among these groups, with their differing perspectives and goals, may require time-consuming meetings as well as tremendous finesse from the managers who guide the NPD effort. Those managers require an approach to cross-functional integration that strikes a balance between efficiency and effectiveness. X. Michael Song, R. Jeffrey Thieme, and Jinhong Xie propose that the right mix of cross-functional involvement may differ depending on the stage in the NPD process. They also suggest that blindly promoting the involvement of all functional areas in all stages of the NPD process may actually decrease NPD performance. They test these propositions in a study that examines the relationships between new product performance and cross-functional joint involvement between R&D, manufacturing, and marketing in five major stages of the NPD process: market opportunity analysis, planning, development, pretesting, and launch. Their objective in this study is to identify patterns of effective cross-functional involvement in different NPD stages. The study uses data collected from 236 managers working in the R&D, manufacturing, and marketing departments of 16 Fortune 500 firms. Their findings suggest that new-product success may be more likely when a firm employs function-specific and stage-specific patterns of cross-functional integration than it is when the firm attempts to integrate all functions during all NPD stages. For example, during the market opportunity analysis stage, the findings suggest that joint involvement between R&D and marketing may be productive, but joint involvement between R&D and manufacturing and among all three functions may be counterproductive. The results also indicate that joint involvement among all three functions either does not have a significant effect on new product success or may be counterproductive in all stages of the NPD process. For the firms in this study, the three functions seem to take turns playing the central role in cross-functional activities. During the product planning, development, and testing phases, the role of the focal function, or communication hub, shifts from manufacturing to R&D and then to marketing. (c) 1998 Elsevier Science Inc.     

Antecedents and Consequences of Cross-Functional Cooperation: A Comparison of R&D, Manufacturing, and Marketing Perspectives

By breaking down the walls among the R&D, manufacturing, and marketing functions, techniques such as concurrent engineering and quality function deployment can pave the way to more effective new product development (NPD). Recognizing the benefits of such cross-functional efforts, practitioners and researchers have examined the interrelationships among various groups in the NPD process, paying particularly close attention to the R&D–marketing interface. However, manufacturing also plays an important role in NPD. Consequently, any thorough exploration of the relationship between cross-functional cooperation and NPD success must consider manufacturing's perspective. X. Michael Song, Mitzi M. Montoya-Weiss, and Jeffrey B. Schmidt provide such a balanced perspective in a study of cross-functional cooperation during NPD in Mexican high-tech firms. Notwithstanding the differing functional goals, objectives, and reward systems present in R&D, manufacturing and marketing, they hypothesize that all three functions recognize that successful NPD requires crossfunctional cooperation. In particular, they expect that representatives of these three functional groups will share similar perceptions, regarding both the drivers and the consequences of cross-functional cooperation. The survey results support the hypothesis that R&D, manufacturing, and marketing professionals share the same perceptions, regarding the drivers and the consequences of cross-functional cooperation. Respondents from all three groups view internal facilitators as the drivers of cross-functional cooperation. In other words, regardless of their functional area, the survey respondents believe that the strongest, most direct effects on cross-functional cooperation and NPD performance come from a firm's evaluation criteria, reward structures, and management expectations. Respondents perceive these internal facilitators as having a greater effect on cross-functional cooperation than that of external forces such as market competitiveness and technological change. In fact, contrary to expectations, the respondents do not view these external forces as having a significant effect on cross-functional cooperation or NPD performance. And contrary to persistent reports about friction between technical and nontechnical personnel, all three groups perceive a strong, positive relationship between cross-functional communication and NPD performance.     

Marketing's Influence Tactics in New Product Development: A Study of High Technology Firms in China

It has been widely recognized that marketing's interaction with other functional departments (e.g., R&D) has significant impact on new product success. However, little research addresses how marketing actually behaves in the process of new product development (NPD). Drawing upon marketing, product innovation, and organizational buying literatures, this study contributes to the literature by delineating the types of influence tactics adopted by marketing and investigating how the use of these tactics affects marketing's influence on NPD decisions. Data on 128 new product projects from 114 high technology firms in China were collected from R&D perspective via on‐site interviews. The findings indicate that, from the R&D's perspective, both marketing and R&D seem to have equivalent influence on new product decisions. In terms of usage frequency, the most frequently used influence tactics by marketing are persistent pressure, information exchange, and recommendation (i.e., use of rational logic). Coalition formation (e.g., seeking the support of peers) and upward appeal (i.e., seeking support from superiors) tactics are moderately used. The less frequently used tactics are legalistic plea (i.e., use of rules and regulations) and request. Regarding the effectiveness of influence tactics, the results indicate that persistent pressure, information exchange, and coalition formation lead to higher marketing influence in NPD decisions. However, the use of an upward appeal tactic leads to lower marketing influence. Recommendation, legalistic plea and request tactics are unrelated to marketing's influence. Our results also show that the efficacy of marketing's influence tactics is contingent upon the degree of functional interdependence in the NPD stages and the degree of interdepartmental conflict. Information exchange and coalition formation tactics are more effective at the initiation stage of the NPD process whereas legalistic plea and persistent pressure are more effective at the implementation stage. We further find that legalistic plea is more effective but coalition tactic is less effective when the degree of interdepartmental conflict is higher. Findings of this study provide managers responsible for ensuring market‐oriented NPD with a better understanding of how the influence of marketing in the NPD process may be enhanced. Given our focus on Chinese firms, they also suggest that managers need to be sensitive to the cultural context of marketing influence.     

Environmental Uncertainty, Organizational Integration, and New Product Development Effectiveness: A Test of Contingency Theory

R&D/marketing integration clearly improves new-product development (NPD) effectiveness. However, achieving this integration increases the costs of NPD efforts. If technical and market uncertainty moderate the effects of integration on NPD effectiveness, perhaps a firm can achieve NPD success in a more cost-effective manner by seeking the appropriate level of integration, based on the perceived level of uncertainty. In a study of 101 NPD projects at high-tech firms in the U.S. and the U.K., William E. Souder, J. Daniel Sherman, and Rachel Davies-Cooper explore the interplay between technical and market uncertainty, integration, and NPD effectiveness. Their study examines two types of integration: R&D/marketing integration and direct R&D/customer integration. The study measures NPD effectiveness in terms of such indicators as NPD cycle time, prototype development proficiency, design change frequency (a negative performance indicator), and product launch proficiency. The responses from both the U.S. and the U.K. firms provide balanced samples of high and low uncertainty projects, as well as successful and unsuccessful projects. The results of this study support previous research regarding the positive effects of both R&D/marketing integration and direct R&D/customer integration on NPD effectiveness. However, only one measure of NPD effectiveness—R&D comercialization effectiveness—was affected by both R&D/marketing integration and direct R&D/customer integration. This result suggests that the two types of integration are distinct from one another and that managers need to emphasize different types of integration, depending on which aspects of NPD effectiveness their firms need to improve. The results also suggest that technical and market uncertainty influence some aspects of NPD effectiveness. For example, the perceived level of technical uncertainty was found to influence prototype development proficiency and to moderate design change frequency. In other words, these results support the idea that a high level of technical uncertainty warrants paying extra attention to increasing prototype development proficiency in the interest of reducing design change frequency. However, the results also reinforce the idea that NPD activities generally involve high levels of technical and market uncertainty, which means that the high cost of integration may be a requirement for NPD success.     

Teamwork Barriers in Japanese High-Technology Firms: The Sociocultural Differences Between R&D and Marketing Managers

Building and maintaining internal harmony is a fundamental concern for managers in many Japanese firms. Discussions of Japanese management practices often point to the intense socialization of new recruits, the rotation of employees through different functions, and the significant role of seniority in determining salary levels and promotions. Considering this emphasis on harmony, can we reasonably assume that the orientations of Japanese R&D and marketing managers do not differ in any ways that may pose significant barriers to teamwork between their departments? X. Michael Song and Mark E. Parry test this assumption by examining the sociocultural differences between R&D and marketing managers in Japanese high-technology firms. Using responses from both R&D and marketing managers in 223 firms, their study groups the respondents’ employers as either low- or high-integration firms. They examine the sociocultural differences between the R&D and marketing managers in the study along five dimensions: time orientation, bureaucratic orientation, professional orientation, tolerance for ambiguity, and preferences for high-risk, high-return projects. Contrary to expectations, the responses reveal several significant differences between the R&D and marketing managers in this study. Compared to their colleagues in marketing, the Japanese R&D managers in this study generally have a stronger preference for high-risk, high-return investments. The R&D managers in the study also have a longer time orientation than the Japanese marketing managers. However, marketing managers from the high-integration firms in the study have a longer time orientation than their counterparts in low-integration firms. Compared to the R&D managers, Japanese marketing managers in the high-integration firms studied have a greater tolerance for ambiguity. And relative to managers in low-integration firms, marketing and R&D managers in the high-integration firms in this study typically have a more bureaucratic organization. Perhaps most important, a significant number of R&D managers in this study perceive the marketing managers in their firms to have higher organizational status. Specifically, responses from R&D managers indicate that they perceive their marketing colleagues to have higher salaries, more power, and brighter career prospects. Such perceptions may foster morale problems among R&D professionals in these Japanese firms, and thus require management intervention to ensure that R&D performance does not suffer.     

Psychosocial antecedents of communication,trust, and relationship effectiveness in new product development projects: a functional manager perspective

The basic differences between marketing managers and their technically trained counterpart managers [e.g., research and development (R&D), engineering, and manufacturing managers] in terms of work experience, training, and differing decision‐making styles have often been suggested as a source of conflict, which acts as a barrier to effective working relationships and integration during new product development (NPD) work. In this paper, we empirically explore this issue by developing and testing a model of psychosocial differences (thought worlds and psychological distance) between the two groups of managers and their effect on communication, trust, and relationship effectiveness during NPD projects. We find that while thought world differences do still matter, it was from a marketing perspective that they had a stronger effect. These findings have implications for top management trying to manage the functional manager interface during NPD projects. We propose a semi‐formalized approach to relationship building that may speed up the acquisition of social data that is often necessary to elevate working relationships to trusting ones and improve the efficiency of NPD work. Our model is tested using data from two samples, 184 technically trained managers and 145 marketing managers from Australian companies involved in NPD work.     

Research notes and communications co-ordinating mechanisms,consensus between marketing and manufacturing groups,and marketplace performance

This exploratory study investigated the relationship among use of various co-ordinating mechanisms, degree of consensus between marketing and manufacturing groups, and marketplace performance reputation. Consensus between marketing and manufacturing groups on key competitive strengths, company goals, and implementation actions was measured in 15 firms in the carpet industry. Those firms which made more frequent use of planning techniques (formal forecasting procedures, management-by-objectives linked to performance appraisal, and a written strategic plan) experienced higher levels of interdepartmental consensus. Consensus between departments was strongly related to marketplace performance reputation.     

Friend or foe? The effects of managerial politics on NPD team communication,collaboration and project success

Much existing work on new product development (NPD) team integration takes an economically rational perspective, specifying appropriate systems, structures and interactions. Few studies however have explored the effects of politics on working relationships between technically trained managers (TTMs; e.g., research and development managers) and marketing managers (MMs) during NPD. Our results reveal that intra-team politics has positive and negative effects on TTM/MM communication. This is important because communication positively influences collaboration and NPD success. Moreover, the effects of communication variables on these two outcome variables differ depending on whether one is a TTM or MM.     

Bidirectional Information Transfer: An Imperative for Network and Marketing Integration in a Canadian Telecommunications Firm

Market intelligence helps ensure that R&D efforts are focused on customer needs. In turn, R&D supplies the information necessary for gaining competitive advantage through advances in product and process technology. However, improved R&D–marketing integration means more than simply involving additional marketing personnel in product development. We must focus on identifying and achieving the desired level of integration. Jozée Lapierre and Brigitte Hénault present the results of a study examining the R&D–marketing interface in a large Canadian telecommunications company. Their study explores managers' perceptions of interfunctional integration during the planning and implementation of new services. The goal of this study is to identify the critical integration areas and managers' satisfaction with the organization's current level of integration. Network (i.e., technical) and marketing managers differ substantially in their perceptions of the required level of integration. However, they agree on the five most important areas of interfunctional integration: marketing involvement in establishing service development schedules; information transfer from marketing to network on competitors' moves; information transfer from marketing to network on customer requirements for new services; information transfer from network to marketing on network availability for providing evolved services; and information transfer from network to marketing on network restrictions affecting performance, after-sales servicing levels, and service pricing. In other words, network and marketing managers view information transfer between their groups as requiring the highest integration level. Both groups agree that their budgeting activities do not require as much integration as other activities. Managers from both groups are generally dissatisfied with the current level of interfunctional integration. Marketing managers are far more dissatisfied than network managers in most areas of integration explored in this study. However, network managers are more dissatisfied than their marketing colleagues in all areas involving the transfer of information from marketing to network.     

Making Trade-Offs in the New Product Development Process: A German/US Comparison

Using a conjoint analysis experiment, Ashok Gupta, Klaus Brockhoff and Ursula Weisenfeld present how R&D, marketing, and manufacturing managers in Germany make trade-offs among three critical variables in the new product (NPD) process: development schedule, development costs, and product performance. The findings are compared with a similar study of US firms. This comparison underscores the basic problem: US managers do not emphasize product development speed to the same extent as do German managers.     

Integrating R&D and Marketing: A Review and Analysis of the Literature

During the past 20 years, numerous studies have explored the R&D—marketing interface and its role in the new product development (NPD) process. Academics and practitioners (including a PDMA task force) have examined commonly used measures of success, the underlying reasons for the success or failure of NPD projects, and the effects of R&D—marketing integration on both project- and company-level success. Does this mean we have all the answers when it comes to ensuring the necessary level of cooperation and interaction between R&D and marketing? Of course not. Abbie Griffin and John R. Hauser note that prior research on R&D—marketing integration is being reassessed in light of the movement toward flatter organizational structures and cross-functional teams. To facilitate that reassessment, and to help guide future research in this area, they review recent research on the methods employed for integrating R&D and marketing, and they propose several hypotheses regarding those methods. They present their review and hypotheses within the framework of a causal map they have developed for studying functional integration. The causal map links cooperation to NPD success along situational dimensions, structural and process dimensions, and outcome dimensions. The desired outcome in any NPD effort is the timely commercialization of a profitable product. The situational dimensions address the amount and types of integration needed in a project, which depend on such factors as the project phase and the level of project uncertainty. The structural and process dimensions focus on the actions taken to achieve functional integration. These include relocation and physical facilities design, personnel movement, informal social systems, organizational structures, incentives and rewards, and formal integrative management processes. The proposed hypotheses focus on the methods for achieving functional integration—that is, the structural and process dimensions of the causal map. At first glance, these hypotheses seem to state the obvious. For example, few would challenge the notion that quality function deployment eliminates barriers to functional integration and improves information sharing between functions. However, achieving those benefits requires the presence of other factors such as senior management involvement. Rather than examine these hypotheses separately, researchers should explore the relative merits of the methods for achieving functional integration. In other words, future research must consider both the situational and the structural and process dimensions of this framework.     

Does Strategic Planning Enhance or Impede Innovation and Firm Performance?*

Does strategic planning enhance or impede innovation and firm performance? The current literature provides contradictory views. This study extends the resource‐advantage theory to examine the conditions in which strategic planning increases or decreases the number of new product development projects and firm performance. The authors test the theoretical model by collecting data from 227 firms. The empirical evidence suggests that more strategic planning and more new product development (NPD) projects lead to better firm performance. Firms with organizational redundancy benefit more from strategic planning than firms with less organizational redundancy. Increasing R&D intensity boosts both the number of NPD projects and firm performance. Strategic planning is more effective in larger firms with higher R&D intensity for increasing the number of NPD projects. The results reported in this study also consist of several findings that challenge the traditional views of strategic planning. The evidence suggests that strategic planning impedes, not enhances, the number of NPD projects. Larger firms benefit less, not more, from strategic planning for improving firm performance. Larger firms do not necessarily create more NPD projects. Increasing organizational redundancy has no effect on the number of NPD projects. These empirical results provide important strategic implications. First, managers should be aware that, in general, formal strategic planning decreases the number of NPD projects for innovation management. Improvised rather than planned activities are more conducive to creating NPD project ideas. Moreover, innovations tend to emerge from improvisational processes, during which the impromptu execution of NPD activities without planning spurs “thinking outside the box,” which enhances the process of creating NPD project ideas. Therefore, more flexible strategic plans that accommodate potential improvisation may be needed in NPD management since innovation‐related activities cannot be planned precisely due to the unexpected jolts and contingencies of the NPD process. Second, large firms with high levels of R&D intensity can overcome the negative effect of strategic planning on the number of NPD projects. Specifically, a firm's abundant resources, when allocated and deployed for NPD activities, signal the high priority and importance of the NPD activities and thus motivate employees to acquire, collect, and gather customer and technical knowledge, which leads to creating more NPD projects. Finally, managers must understand that managing strategic planning and generating NPD project ideas are beneficial to the ultimate outcome of firm performance despite the adverse relationship between strategic planning and the number of NPD projects.     

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.     

The Role of Departmental Thought Worlds in Shaping Escalation of Commitment in New Product Development Projects

The debate over whether and how thought worlds of different departments (especially marketing and research and development [R&D]) affect managers' decision-making behavior in new product development (NPD) is ongoing. A key challenge of these decisions is to deal with deteriorating NPD projects, which are often subject to escalation of commitment (EoC), with many firms wasting billions of dollars by throwing good money after bad NPD projects. However, understanding departmental thought worlds and their role for EoC in NPD could help firms stop this profusion. Thus, this research provides answers to the question of how thought worlds affect managers' tendency toward EoC in NPD decision-making—both in general and under certain project characteristics. To do so, we conducted four studies based on real-life scenarios with 460 highly experienced NPD managers from marketing and R&D, thus ensuring high validity and reliability. Our research is the first to explore the impact of thought worlds on EoC, thereby detecting that the importance of managers' thought worlds for shaping EoC varies with the NPD project's characteristics. Thus, depending on the specific project situation, different types of managers may be more or less capable of making proper NPD decisions. Moreover, results show that belief updating serves as a respective key mediator. Doing so enriches the theory by showing that managers' thought worlds can substantially influence a major mechanism (i.e., belief updating) of coping with cognitive dissonance. Finally, post hoc tests reveal departmental differences in EoC behavior between marketing and R&D that vary with a project's characteristics. These results imply that firms need to carefully consider who is in charge of making decisions on NPD project continuance in different project situations.     

The R&D-Marketing Interface in High-Technology Firms

It has become part of the traditional wisdom that good relationships between the R&D and marketing departments are essential for effective new product development. But in so many firms it still just doesn't happen. How come? In this article, three pragmatic researchers, Professors Gupta, Raj, and Wilemon, take another look at what causes the significant barriers that exist at the interface of two of the key product innovation functions. What they discover is disagreement between marketing and R&D people about what they should do together. They also find that R&D people are the more reluctant cooperators. They draw some interesting opinions from the parties as to why the barriers exist.     

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.     

Determinants of integrated product development diffusion

Integrated product development (IPD) is an approach for developing new products focused on the early and active involvement of design, manufacturing, marketing and other key new product development (NPD) stakeholders in order to achieve cross-functional integration and concurrent execution of various NPD activities. The benefits of IPD are well known in both the academic literature and popular press, including significant reductions in NPD cycle time and costs. However, in spite of these benefits, for the majority of manufacturing organizations, IPD is not used on 100% of NPD projects. This research develops a model of the organizational contextual factors influencing the diffusion of IPD in organizations. Results of surveying 269 NPD managers indicate that the complexity of certain IPD practices and support for IPD directly influence IPD diffusion, while an innovative organizational climate and the complexity of the organization's NPD activities indirectly influence IPD diffusion through IPD support.