An Organizational Learning Approach to Product Innovation

This article examines product innovation as an organizational learning process. It provides a framework allowing managers and scholars to relate product-innovation learning skills to organizational goals. Daryl McKee shows how different types of organizational learning skills are involved in incremental innovation, discontinuous innovation and institutionalization of innovation within the organization. This conceptualization can help scholars and managers diagnose an organization's learning skills and how they relate to new product management; direct the organization toward learning more efficient and effective product innovation; and provide scholars with a structure for future research.     

Facilitating Global Organizational Learning in Product Development at Whirlpool Corporation

The challenges of leveraging learning about product development in a global company are complex. Whirlpool Corporation is addressing these challenges, using a multidimensional strategy that couples work in advanced products and product development with organization development and training. Deborah Durate and Nancy Snyder describe how Whirlpool has implemented training, best practices conferences, and programs focused on enhancing the performance of product development teams to facilitate learning after product development efforts and to leverage that learning on a global basis. Programs and processes are described, and lessons learned as well as guidelines for development are offered.     

How New Product Introductions Affect Sales Management Strategy: The Impact of Type of "Newness" of the New Product

How do firms adjust sales management strategy for new product launch? Does sales management strategy change more radically for different types of new products such as new‐to‐the‐world products versus product revisions? Because firms introducing a new product rely considerably on their sales force in the product launch effort, the types and degree of changes made in managing the selling effort are important issues. Past studies have demonstrated that firms make substantial adjustments in their sales management strategy when they introduce a new product. This study expands on previous investigations by examining whether sales management strategy changes are conditioned by the type of newness of the new product to the market and to the firm. Australian sales managers were asked to respond to a mail questionnaire concerning pre‐ and post‐new product launch sales management activities. Three groups of firms were compared: (1) those with new‐to‐the‐market and new‐to‐the‐firm products (i.e., new‐to‐the‐world products); (2) those with products new to the firm but not new to the market; and (3) those with products that are revisions to the firm and not new to the market. The study finds that firms do not make the most adjustments for products with the greatest degree of market newness—the new‐to‐the‐world types of products—except in the sales management strategy categories of compensation and supervision. In the other sales management strategy categories defined for study—organization, training, quotas and goals, and sales support as well as for all categories in the aggregate—sales management strategy changes were greatest in incidence, as measured both by the percent of firms making changes and the average number of changes per firm, when the new product was new to the firm but not new to the market. These results suggest that, because different types of new products face different competitive environments, there may be greater incentive for a not‐new‐to‐the‐market new‐to‐the‐firm product to make changes in sales strategy. Uncertainties about market size and customer location with new‐to‐the‐world products may limit the understanding of what changes to make in the strategy categories of quotas and territories. Similarly, uncertainties about product use and customer acceptance of new‐to‐the‐world products may limit the development of training and sales support materials by these firms. Instead, these firms may rely more on compensation and supervision to direct sales efforts for new‐to‐the‐world products. However, observing the market experience and performance of the first‐to‐market product can benefit firms launching a not‐new‐to‐market and new‐to‐the‐firm product, allowing them to rely more on strategy changes in training, sales support materials, organizational adjustments such as redeployments, and quotas.     

Product Development Strategy and Organizational Learning: A Tale of Two PC Makers

The personal computer (PC) marketplace in the US presents a dizzying array of component suppliers and products. No single firm dominates the industry with a complete package of hardware and software components. Although one company's operating systems and general-purpose applications are installed on most PCs in the US, the other system components—processors, memory, storage devices, display adapters, monitors, specialized applications, and so on—come from any number of sources. David T. Methe, Ryoko Toyama, and Junichiro Miyabe point out that the PC industry in Japan also exhibits this decentralized nature. However, they also note that despite the decentralized network structure of the Japanese PC industry, one company—NEC—was able to achieve a dominant market share. To provide insight into the key issues involved in the management of complex technology, they contrast NEC's strategic approach to product development and organizational learning with the approaches taken by Fujitsu—the firm that placed a distant second in this market. Despite matching NEC in terms of technological capabilities, financial resources, and managerial talent, Fujitsu never managed to threaten NEC's dominance of the PC market in Japan. Fujitsu continually emphasized technological leadership, even at the expense of protecting its installed base. Poor coordination of resources and product development efforts resulted in incompatibilities among Fujitsu's various products, and the company failed to foster close relationships with suppliers of such key technologies as software and peripherals. NEC's PCs did not enjoy the advantages of first-to-market status or technological leadership. Instead, NEC achieved market dominance by finding the combination of product technologies that met the needs of the greatest number of consumers. Throughout almost 20 years of competition in the PC industry, NEC successfully maintained consistency and backward compatibility across its product lines. NEC also recognized the importance of third-party software developers, and carefully cultivated relations with these firms as a source of competitive advantage. In other words, NEC struck the right balance between three key factors: technological innovation, motivation of third-party developers of software and peripherals, and service to its installed base of customers.     

Organizational Environment, New Product Process Activities, and Project Outcomes

Results of a study of 95 new product projects in 75 Australian manufacturing firms reveal two important sets of links. Firstly, links between the elements of firms' organizational environments and proficiency of new product process activities. Secondly, links between activity proficiency and new product project outcomes. The two findings enable links to be posited between the organizational characteristics of firms and the outcomes of new project projects. The findings have implications for managers wishing to increase the likelihood of successful new product development.     

Organizational Influences on the New Product Development Process in Financial Services

The last decade has been notable for increasing levels of environmental turbulence brought about by technological advances, deregulation, consumer sophistication, and competition. Consequently a premium has been placed on the ability of managers to differentiate their products and maintain competitive advantages. This may be achieved by developing an organizational climate that is responsive to change and supportive of new product initiatives. In his article, Des Thwaites draws on the established literature and a panel of informed opinion from the financial services sector to identify 12 characteristics of an organization that influence the effectiveness of the new product development process. United Kingdom building societies are examined to determine the emphasis given to these critical aspects of innovation. Three underlying factors, communication, people and mission, explain much of the variance among building societies. Five discrete groupings of firms are identified, and significant differences between their orientations are determined across a range of variables supporting new product development. While the empirical section of the study relates to a specific industrial sector, several issues and the recommendations transcend industry boundaries.     

The Impact of Market Orientation, Product Advantage, and Launch Proficiency on New Product Performance and Organizational Performance

Some scholars have suggested recently that a market‐oriented culture leads to superior performance, at least in part, because of the new products that are developed and are brought to market. Others have reinforced this wisdom by revealing that a market‐oriented culture enhances organizational innovativeness and new product success, both of which in turn improve organizational performance. These scholars do not reveal, however, through which new product development (NPD) activities a market‐oriented culture is converted into superior performance. To determine how critical NPD activities are for a market‐oriented firm to achieve superior performance, our study uses data from 126 firms in The Netherlands to investigate the structural relationships among market orientation, new product advantage, the proficiency in new product launch activities, new product performance, and organizational performance. We focus on product advantage—because product benefits typically form the compelling reasons for customers to buy the new product—and on the launch proficiency—as the launch stage represents the most costly and risky part of the NPD process. Focusing on the launch stage also is relevant because it is only during the launch that it will become evident whether a market orientation has crystallized into a superior product in the eyes of the customer. The results provide evidence that a market orientation is related positively to product advantage and to the proficiency in market testing, launch budgeting, launch strategy, and launch tactics. Product advantage and the proficiency in launch tactics are related positively to new product performance, which itself is related positively to organizational performance. Market orientation has no direct relationship to new product performance and to organizational performance. An important implication of our study is that the impact of a market orientation on organizational performance is channeled through the effects of a market orientation on product advantage and launch proficiency; subsequently through the effects of product advantage and the proficiency in launch tactics on new product performance; and finally through the effect of new product performance on organizational performance. These channeling effects are much more subtle and complex than the direct relationship of market orientation on organizational performance previously assumed. Another implication of our study is that the impact of a market orientation on performance occurs through the launch activities rather than being pervasive to all organizational processes and activities. A reason for this finding may be that NPD is the one element of the marketing mix that predominantly is the responsibility of the firm, whereas promotion and distribution often are in control of organizations outside the firm (e.g., advertising agencies, major retailers) and whereas the channel or the market often dictates the price. Both implications provide ample opportunities for further research on market orientation and NPD.     

The Immediate Impact of New Product Introductions on Stock Price: The Role of Firm Resources and Size*

New product development and introduction is an ongoing important issue to facilitate a firm's success. To demonstrate the financial impact of new product introductions and the supporting role of firm resources and organizational structure, the authors collected 409 new product announcements from 1990 to 1998 and used event methodology and regression models in this research. Building on resources and capabilities perspectives, the present study argues that firm resources with emphases on research and development (R&D) are imperative to materialize new product concepts. However, the research revealed that R&D resources have dual effects on immediate shareholder value (i.e., abnormal stock returns). On one hand, when the firm commits only lower to moderate levels of R&D, investors would have perceived such R&D as expenditures reducing the firm's profit margin and thereby negatively evaluate R&D resources. Nevertheless, when the firm has dedicated its resources to R&D significant enough to signal investors its potential benefits can outweigh its costs, it generates positive shareholder value. Further, the study found that investors honor positive marketing resources that are critical to promote and launch new products to customers. Apart from resources perspectives, according to the organizational structure literature, firm size reflects the layers of bureaucracy within an organization. The research found a negative effect on shareholder value, indicating that investors evaluate more optimistically smaller firms that are likely to be more innovative and entrepreneurial resulted in more breakthrough products. In conclusion, this study provides value to practitioners in understanding the impact of firm size and, more importantly, to what extent they dedicate their resources in R&D and marketing to generate different performance outcomes.     

Using Exploratory and Exploitative Market Learning for New Product Development*

While the need for research on the market‐learning efforts of a firm in relation to its new product development is continuously emphasized, the empirical results on this issue reported so far have been mixed. The current study contends that the inconclusive nature of the empirical evidence is mostly due to the existence of different dimensions of organizational market learning—exploratory and exploitative—and to possible different routes by which these learning dimensions are linked to new product performance. More specifically, this study argues that exploratory market learning contributes to the differentiation of the new product because it involves the firm's learning about uncertain and new opportunities through the acquisition of knowledge distant from existing organizational skills and experiences. By contrast, this study posits that exploitative market learning enhances cost efficiency in developing new products as it aims to best use the currently available market information that is closely related to existing organizational experience. This study provides empirical support for this two‐dimensional scheme of organizational market learning and its consequent effects on two components of new product advantage: new product differentiation and cost efficiency. Further, given that the effectiveness of firms' strategic efforts is contingent upon the nature of the market environment, the current study examines the moderating effects of environmental dynamism and market competitiveness for this market learning—new product advantage relationship. This study is based on survey data from 157 manufacturing firms in China that encompass various industries. The empirical findings support the two‐dimensional market learning efforts that increase new product differentiation and cost efficiency, respectively. The study confirms that exploratory market learning becomes more effective under a turbulent market environment and that exploitative market learning is more contributive when competitive intensity is high. It also suggests that because of their differential direct and moderating effects on new product advantage either exploratory or exploitative market learning may not be used exclusively, but the two should be implemented in parallel. Such learning implementations will help to secure both the feature and cost‐based new product advantage components and will consequently lead to the new product success. The current study attempts to contribute to greater clarity and better understanding of how market learning influences new product success as it theoretically identifies and empirically validates the two forms of new product advantage as the conceptual mediator between market learning and new product performance.     

Increasing Learning and Time Efficiency in Interorganizational New Product Development Teams*

Despite the growing popularity of new product development across organizational boundaries, the processes, mechanisms, or dynamics that leverage performance in interorganizational (I‐O) product development teams are not well understood. Such teams are staffed with individuals drawn from the partnering firms and are relied on to develop successful new products while at the same time enhancing mutual learning and reducing development time. However, these collaborations can encounter difficulties when partners from different corporate cultures and thought worlds must coordinate and depend on one another and often lead to disappointing performance. To facilitate collaboration, the creation of a safe, supportive, challenging, and engaging environment is particularly important for enabling productive collaborative I‐O teamwork and is essential for learning and time efficient product development. This research develops and tests a model of proposed factors to increase both learning and time efficiency on I‐O new product teams. It is argued that specific behaviors (caring), beliefs (psychological safety), task‐related processes (shared problem solving), and governance mechanisms (clear management direction) create a positive climate that increases learning and time efficiency on I‐O teams. Results of an empirical study of 50 collaborative new product development projects indicate that (1) shared problem solving and caring behavior support both learning and time efficiency on I‐O teams, (2) team psychological safety is positively related to learning, (3) management direction is positively associated with time efficiency, and (4) shared problem solving is more strongly related to both performance dimensions than are the other factors. The factors supporting time efficiency are slightly different from those that foster learning. The relative importance of these factors also differs considerably for both performance aspects. Overall, this study contributes to a better understanding of the factors that facilitate a favorable environment for productive collaboration on I‐O teams, which go beyond contracts or top‐management supervision. Establishing such an environment can help to balance management concerns and promote the success of I‐O teams. The significance of the results is elevated by the fragility of collaborative ventures and their potential for failure, when firms with different organizational cultures, thought worlds, objectives, and intentions increasingly decide to work across organizational boundaries for the development of new products.     

Supportiveness of Organizational Climate, Market Orientation, and New Product Performance in Chinese Firms

Most knowledge development efforts in new product development have focused on Western economies and companies. However, due to its size, rapid growth rate, and market reforms, China has emerged as an important new context for new product development. Unfortunately, current understanding of the factors associated with new product success in China remains limited. We address this knowledge gap using mixed methods. First, we conducted 19 in‐depth interviews with managers involved in new product development in 11 different Chinese firms. The qualitative fieldwork indicated that firm behaviors and employee perceptions consistent with the phenomena of market orientation and the supportiveness of organizational climate both are viewed as important drivers of the new product performance of Chinese firms. Drawing on the marketing, management, and new product development literature this study develops a hypothetical model linking market orientation, supportiveness of organizational climate, and firms' new product performance. Direct relationships are hypothesized between both market orientation and supportiveness of organizational climate and firms' new product performance, as well as a relationship between supportiveness of organizational climate and market orientation. Data to test the hypothetical model were collected via an on‐site administered questionnaire from 110 manufacturing firms in China. The hypothesized relationships are tested using structural equation modeling. Results indicate a positive direct relationship of market orientation on firms' new product performance, with an indirect positive effect of supportiveness of organizational climate via its impact on market orientation. However, no support is found for a direct relationship between the supportiveness of a firm's organizational climate and its new product performance. These findings are consistent with resource‐based view theory propositions in the marketing literature indicating that market orientation is a valuable, nonsubstitutable, and inimitable resource and with similar propositions in the management literature concerning organizational culture. However, this study's findings also indicate that in contrast to a number of organizational culture theory propositions and empirical findings in some consumer service industries, the impact of organizational climate on firm performance in a new product context is indirect via the firm's generation, dissemination, and responsiveness to market intelligence. These results suggest that an effort to improve firms' new product performance by enhancing the flow and utilization of market intelligence is an appropriate allocation of resources. Further, this study's findings indicate that managers should direct at least some of their efforts to enhance a firm's market orientation at improving employee perceptions of the supportiveness of the firm's management and of their peers. This study indicates a need for further research concerning the role of different dimensions of organizational climate in firms' new product processes.     

基于网络的企业学习与治理机制

随着经济全球化和市场竞争加剧，战略联盟、虚拟企业等形态的网络组织大量出现。在这种背景下，解决企业网络中知识资源治理的问题成为关键。交易成本经济学把企业网络视为一个交易平台，提出了基于“专用性投资”的解决方案。本文认为．企业网络具有知识性质，网络学习是解决企业网络中知识资源“公地悲剧”现象和提升网络价值的关键。成员企业的网络学习的效率不仅取决于其知识学习能力积累和网络的知识学习能力积累，而且还取决于网络知识共享平台。网络知识共享平台是提高成员企业知识吸收、结合和创新能力的重要机制．     

新产品

Toyo公司新发明：圆角设计棒状包装；Oppenheimer推出最新可降解猕猴桃包装；ZIP—PAK将推出最新的拉链产品；PET喷雾器瓶;彩色玻璃纸包装带给酵母粉更长的储藏寿命     

产品园地

精制高白彩印新闻纸问世 湖南岳纸公司研制成功了一种高白彩印新闻纸,并通过了湖南省经贸委组织的技术鉴定。 该纸采用该公司具有自主知识产权的当代清洁工艺生产的意大利杨APMP浆配抄,通过优化生产工艺,采用高速叠网纸机抄造。该纸白度高、抗张强度大、印刷适性好、表面强度高、不掉毛掉粉,完全能达到进口高速轮转印刷机的印刷要求,可替代进口产品     

Accelerated Product Introductions and Emerging Managerial Accounting Perspectives: Implications for Marketing Managers in the Technology Sector

Rapid changes in manufacturing and design technologies coupled with increased competition domestically and internationally have led to shorter product life cycles and compressed lead times for product introductions in the technology sector. Traditional cost accounting systems, which assume labor to be the major cost component in the production process, have resulted in distortions in cost information. Samuel Rabino and Arnold Wright describe emerging cost accounting approaches that more adequately address the changing competitive and technological environments and facilitate an improved evaluation of product launch programs.     

Faster New Product Development

Clearly today's business climate mandates the need for faster development of new products. Drawing upon his experience, Milton Rosenau describes several techniques that have not been mentioned explicitly in recent articles: short, focused development phases; management involvement and support; procurement and use of productivity improvements; multifunctional teamwork; distraction reduction; frozen specifications; and microcomputer-based project management software.     

Third-Generation New Product Processes

New product processes—formal "stage-gate" systems for driving new product projects from idea through to launch—have been widely adopted in the last decade, and have generally had a strong and positive impact on firms' new product efforts. While these Second-Generation roadmaps represent a major improvement over the NASA-based first generation process of the 1960s, they too have weaknesses: too time consuming and too many time wasters, too bureaucratic, and no provision for focus. Here, Robert Cooper speculates about the nature of an emerging next generation of new product processes. He proposes fundamental changes to today's "stage-gate" systems that revolve around four Fs: they will be fluid and adaptable; they will incorporate fuzzy gates which are both situational and conditional; they will provide for much sharper focus of resources and management of the portfolio of projects; and they will be much more flexible than today's process. The end results should provide companies with a much more efficient road-map, bringing products to market faster and improving their use of scarce resources. But pitfalls are never far away in our evolution towards these Third-Generation Processes.     

Imagination Difficulty and New Product Evaluation

This research examines the role of imagination difficulty on the evaluation of really new products (RNPs) in comparison with incrementally new products (INPs). We extend past research on accessibility utilizing an anticipatory approach where consumers look forward and generate mental images for future product usage. We found that the role of imagination changes based on the newness of the product. Specifically, for RNPs, imagination difficulty is perceived to be diagnostic in product assessment, and thus, higher imagination difficulty leads to lower product evaluations. However, for INPs, which are shown to be less susceptible to context effects, imagination difficulty has a limited impact on product evaluations. In addition, we show that the effect of imagination difficulty on the evaluation of RNPs is moderated by the level of involvement of the consumer. Research and managerial implications are discussed.     

Autonomous Teams and New Product Development

An autonomous team is an emerging tool for new product development (NPD). With its high degree of autonomy, independence, leadership, dedication, and collocation, the team has more freedom and stronger capabilities to be innovative and entrepreneurial. Several anecdotal cases suggest that autonomous teams are best when applied to highly uncertain, complex, and innovative projects. However, there is no empirical study to test such a notion. Moreover, autonomous teams are not a panacea, and implementing them can be costly and disruptive to their parent organization. When should this powerful, yet costly tool, be pulled out of the new product professional's toolbox? This paper attempts to answer this question. The objective of this study is to explore under which circumstances an autonomous team is the best choice for NPD. Based on contingency and information‐processing theories, autonomous teams are hypothesized to be more effective to address projects with: (1) high technology novelty and (2) radical innovation. To test these hypotheses, the relative effectiveness of four types of team structures: autonomous, functional, lightweight, and heavyweight are compared. The effectiveness measures include development cost, development speed, and overall product success. Vision clarity, resource availability, and team experience are the controlled variables. The empirical results based on the data from 555 NPD projects generally support the research hypotheses. Relative to other team structures, autonomous teams are more effective in addressing projects with high technology novelty or radical innovation. The results also suggest that heavyweight teams perform better than other teams in developing incremental innovation. These results provide some evidence to support contingency and information‐processing theories at the project level. Given the importance of the development of novel technology and radical innovation in establishing new businesses and other strategic initiatives, the findings of this study may not only have some important implications for NPD practices but may also shed some light on other important topics such as disruptive innovation, strategic innovation, new venture, corporate entrepreneurship, and ambidextrous organization.