When do we really need interpersonal trust in globally dispersed new product development teams?

Interpersonal trust refers to the willingness to make oneself vulnerable to the actions of another party. Trust is generally acknowledged as fostering knowledge exchange and thus contributing to new product development (NPD) team effectiveness. However, the conditions under which NPD teams come to rely more heavily on trust to facilitate effectiveness remain unclear. With burgeoning global collaboration on new product development, we analyze how the characteristics of global NPD teams, i.e., geographic dispersion, computer‐mediated communication (e.g., e‐mail, video‐conferencing), team membership flexibility, and national diversity moderate the trust–effectiveness relationship. Our results show that trust is more important under the condition of geographic dispersion, computer‐mediated communication, and national diversity. By specifying when trust influences NPD team effectiveness in globally dispersed teams, we discuss the theoretical implications and provide recommendations for management.     

The new age of new product development: are we there yet?

A three-questionnaire DELPHI issues study identifies and ranks in importance the top twenty-four management of technology (MOT) issues (unresolved problems) in new product development involving advanced technologies. The study was conducted because of a dearth of studies evaluating the relative importance of MOT problems that are shared across advanced-technology industries. The study relates each of the top ten MOT issues to the 'new product development paradigm' to help explain the importance of each issue. Discussion of participants' comments provides insights into their concerns about each issue. Strategic Planning for Technology Products was identified as the top priority issue, but European and USA participants did not fully agree on the importance of several issues. The findings aid in identifying priority new product development research projects, and show R&D managers the extent to which specific MOT issues are of general concern among companies.     

Pharmaceutical new product development: why do clinical trials fail?

A high percentage of new drug candidates fail to reach the market during clinical trials, and these failures imply massive financial losses for the pharmaceutical companies. Clinical trials have distinctive characteristics and additional complexity compared with the late stages of product development in many other industrial sectors. Although the current literature on clinical trial has offered explanations for why a drug is abandoned during clinical trials (e.g., toxicity, lack of efficacy, and economics), studies investigating non‐drug‐related causes of failure are scarce. New product development (NPD) failures also differ from one another; however, no comprehensive conceptual framework in the NPD literature describes how to classify failures. This study suggests a conceptual framework for explaining NPD failures in the pharmaceutical industry by drawing on clinical trial literature combined with an exploratory empirical approach based on 17 interviews with industry experts. The initial interviews were used to identify managerial issues related to clinical trial failure, and the later interviews had a more iterative character to validate the issues identified in the previous round. We identified seven critical management issues causing failures in clinical trials. Our findings indicate that chaotic and slow patient recruitment, lack of experience in choosing and monitoring partners, lack of feasibility of the study protocol, low quality of the registered data, too high incidence of serious adverse events and severe incidents, unmanageable level of portfolio complexity, and incorrect assessment of the market potential or returns cause the failure of clinical trials. The conceptual framework for failures proposed in this paper combines project and product failures while acknowledging relevant specificities in clinical trials. Clinical trial managers are also supported in their decision making in clinical trials with an identified list of critical management issues that require attention to reducing the chance of failure. This study provides a basis for future empirical testing, including measuring interdependencies among the critical management issues and their adequacy for predicting failure.     

Antecedents of functional integration during new product development: The purchasing–marketing link

In response to different economic and business trends, companies are becoming increasingly dependent on external resources and capabilities as they seek to cater for an ever more complex and challenging demand. Such dependence has led an important group of scholars to draw attention to the inevitable integration of the purchasing and marketing functions. We stress here the need for such integration during new product development, and seek the mechanisms that may promote purchasing–marketing integration. Accordingly, this study describes two essential components underlying the concept of purchasing–marketing integration, and tests the effect of different integration mechanisms gathered from the literature on these two components. The model is tested on a sample of 141 Spanish industrial companies. Our results show that each one of these integration mechanisms varies in its effectiveness in promoting each key component of purchasing–marketing integration. Taking these asymmetric effects into account is crucial for selecting the appropriate purchasing and marketing integration devices within companies.     

Value for value—The dynamics of supplier value in collaborative new product development

Suppliers are recognized as an important source of innovation. Research into supplier involvement in new product development has shown that benefits can potentially be reaped by customers. However, a relatively unexplored precondition is the willingness of suppliers to invest in their customers’ innovative efforts. In this exploratory, theory-extending research, we investigate the value that a supplier can experience from being involved in high tech firms’ new product development. We find that value comes in three forms for suppliers: (1) financial payment for sales volumes and product development services, (2) technological knowledge and product designs, and the (3) reputation of doing business with leading-edge firms Additionally, we place this in a dynamic, long-term perspective, and find indications for a positive or negative feedback effect, depending on the emphasis the buyer puts on collaborative innovation with the supplier and the extent to which suppliers can use competences, knowledge and reputation resulting from the collaboration in subsequent business development activities. The positive effect results in added value for both parties in the dyad, and the negative effect leads to the opposite.     

Entrepreneurial firms’ network competence,technological capability,and new product development performance

Successfully developing new products is critical to an entrepreneurial firm’s continued success. Based on the resource management model, this study aims to answer the key research question: how entrepreneurial firms leverage network competence and technological capability to enhance their new product development (NPD) performance in a turbulent environment. Using data collected from 134 entrepreneurial firms in China, we investigate the performance effects of network competence and technological capability, and the moderating effects of technological turbulence and market turbulence. Our findings show that network competence has a positive impact on NPD performance and technological capability plays a mediating role between network competence and NPD performance. Technological turbulence enhances the performance effects of network competence and technological capability; market turbulence advances the performance effect of network competence, but fails to exert significant negative impact on that of technological capability. We discuss managerial implications of our findings and offer directions for future research.     

Is the future static or dynamic? The role of culture on escalation of commitment in new product development

Escalation of commitment in new product development has been studied extensively for the last four decades but the impact of culture on the escalation phenomenon remains largely unexplored. This study investigates how culture impacts the decision to escalate or deescalate commitment to new products. Americans are analytic thinkers whereas Chinese tend to be holistic thinkers. When it comes to decision making, analytic thinkers focus on field independent and abstract factors and believe that future is linear and static, whereas holistic thinkers focus more on contextual factors and believe that future is dynamic and nonlinear. Hence, Chinese are more likely to escalate their commitment relative to Americans on receiving a negative performance report in the new product development process. A lab experiment using weekend MBA students and managers was used to test this underlying hypothesis. The findings confirmed that analytical thinkers use fewer factors than holistic thinkers in making new product decisions, and that Chinese managers are more likely to escalate their commitment relative to American managers. The decision to escalate or de-escalate was moderated by perceived product innovativeness.     

Attitudes and behaviours of key account managers: Are they really any different to senior sales professionals?

This study investigates the range of attitudes and behaviours exhibited by Key Account Managers (KAMs) in their roles as customer relationship managers. Specifically, we test whether KAMs exhibit different behaviours and attitudes towards relationship management compared to other sales professionals based on a range of assumptions currently theorized but untested in the Key Account Management (KAM) literature. Utilizing the existing theoretical models of a KAM role we identify six major areas of relational behaviour assumed in the literature to separate the KAM from the sales professional. Drawing on a cross sectional quantitative study of 10 organizations and 409 key account managers, sales managers, and senior sales executives we explore goal orientation, planning, customer embeddedness, strategic prioritization, adaptability and internal management behaviours of our groups and find that, in certain managerial tasks, KAMs do indeed exhibit many of the different behaviours and attitudes predicted in the literature. However, in many customer-facing, goal orientated and revenue generating activities, contrary to expectations, they display similar attitudes and behaviours to those in senior sales roles. This challenges the way that the KAM role has previously been conceptualized. Our findings raise a potential issue for senior managers, since KAMs' unexpectedly short term orientation may lead to insufficient consideration of the strategic consequences of their decisions for these key customer relationships.     

The interplay between outbound team strategy and market information processing in the course of ‘really new’ NPD projects

The purpose of the study is to explore how and when outbound team strategy – reaching out to other parts of the organization – plays a role in market information processing in really new NPD. Prior research mainly focused on intra-team factors, such as cross-functional integration, affecting market information processing in NPD. We conducted a comparative longitudinal case-study of two really new NPD projects, Shield and Anti-resist, in one chemical firm using in-depth-interviews and archival data. Case findings suggest that lack of market information processing in Shield compared with Anti-resist was rooted in differences in outbound strategies between the two projects rather than intra-team factors. While the literature has praised decentralization for enhancing information processing and creativity, we conclude that this comes with the responsibility of individual NPD teams to proactively reflect on their own marketing actions along the way in really new NPD. This implies that managers better recognize team behavior and adapt their control mechanisms to incorporate outbound team strategies.     

Open innovation: Are inbound and outbound knowledge flows really complementary?

One novel implication of the open innovation paradigm is that inflows and outflows of knowledge are complementary. We argue that engaging simultaneously in buying and selling knowledge should allow firms to increase innovation outcomes. At the same time, we identify some of the relevant costs (cognitive, transaction, and organizational costs) that “open” firms can reduce by combining knowledge inflows and outflows. Empirically, however, we find no evidence for such complementarity in a sample of Belgian manufacturing firms. Firms buying and selling knowledge do increase their sales of new products, but at the same time their R&D costs increase more than proportionally. Our findings, therefore, indicate the need for research into a better understanding of the drivers of actual costs of organizing for open innovation. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Do development projects crowd-out private sector activities? Evidence from contract farming participation in Northern Ghana

Contract farming (CF) is attractive as a possible private sector-led strategy for improving market coordination and smallholder farmers’ welfare. At the same time, governmental and non-governmental development projects aimed at improving farmers’ welfare continue to be organized. It is not uncommon for CF activities and development projects to take place in the same communities. Yet so far there is no evidence on how development projects affect CF activities. We examine factors affecting entry in and exit from different maize CF schemes in Northern Ghana, and focus specifically on the role of development projects. We find that the presence of agricultural development projects in the community is associated with lower scheme entry, but this not the case for non-agricultural projects. CF exit is more strongly associated with maize projects, but not significantly with non-maize or non-agricultural projects. Thus, our findings do not support concerns of a general moral hazard problem arising from the presence of any development project, but indicate possible negative associations of more closely related agricultural or maize projects with maize CF participation.     

What factors of early-stage innovative projects are likely to drive projects’ success? A longitudinal analysis of Korean entrepreneurial firms

Previous studies have identified the factors affecting successful technology commercialization as outcomes of R&D projects. However, most of them have used cross-sectional data, whereas there is a dearth of literature using longitudinal data analysis. Longitudinal analysis is essential for investigating the characteristics of early-stage innovative projects due to the inherent time lag between project evaluation and commercialization. Therefore, this study examines the early-stage project characteristics that can be used as meaningful evaluation criteria for predicting success, particularly in technology commercialization. We collected data on the ex-ante evaluation results and ex-post commercialization results of R&D projects pursued by entrepreneurial firms. We then conducted a logistic regression analysis and identified three market-related factors as significant in driving technology commercialization success in the early stages of technology development: market potential, commercialization plan, and market condition.     

Do non‐competition agreements lead firms to pursue risky R&D projects?

This study investigates the impact of non‐competition agreements on the type of R&D activity undertaken by companies. Non‐competition agreements, by reducing outbound mobility and knowledge leakages to competitors, make high‐risk R&D projects relatively more valuable than low‐risk ones. Thus, they induce companies to choose riskier R&D projects, such that corporate inventions are more likely to lie in the tails of the inventions' value distribution (as breakthroughs or failures) and be in novel technological areas. This study uses data about U.S. patent applications from 1990 to 2000 and considers longitudinal variation in the enforcement of non‐compete clauses. The results indicate that in states with stricter enforcement, companies undertake riskier R&D paths than in states that do not enforce non‐compete agreements as strictly. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Trust formation in Korean new product alliances: How important are pre-existing social ties?

The focus of this study is on the nature and influence of social connections versus other relational mechanisms on trust formation in an emerging Asian economy. We examine the role of communication quality, perceived fairness, and pre-existing social relationships for the formation of trust in 47 vertical new product development alliances in South Korea. The empirical results indicate a relatively minor importance of pre-existing social ties vis-à-vis communication quality and fairness for the development of trust. Contrary to widespread perceptions, pre-existing social ties do not appear to directly contribute to establishing trust with external alliance partners in Korea. Multiple explanations are offered for this unexpected finding. Instead, existing social relationships moderate the importance of fairness for trust formation. When conducting partnerships with Korean firms, managers should focus more on a quality communication and fair behavior when trust formation is the objective, than on social connections.     

Are network effects really all about size? The role of structure and conduct

Rooted in neoclassical economics, network effects research has revolved around size, arguing that the more users a network has, the more valuable that network will be to each user. I argue that a network's structure (feasibility of transactions, centrality of members, structural holes, network ties, the number of roles each member plays) and its conduct (opportunistic behavior, reputation signaling, perceptions of trust) also have significant impacts on a network's value to users and to network providers. Network research that neglects structure and conduct and focuses only on size can lead to wrong strategies or a misleading research agenda. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Can me‐too products prevail? Performance of new product development and sources of idea generation in China – an emerging market

New products developed in emerging markets such as China, India and Brazil are not only sold locally but also ‘exported’ globally, suggesting a changing landscape for global innovation. Existing literature in technology learning and capability accumulation has long held the claim that, for a certain period of time in their development, firms in latecomer countries rely on their counterparts in developed countries to get new product ideas. However, existing research in this area is generally based on case studies and historical analyses; there are few empirical studies exploring the performance consequence of learning from competitors abroad. Using large‐scale, nationwide survey data from China, we explore specifically whether learning about new product ideas from leading firms in foreign countries will lead to higher performance outcomes than other sources (i.e. domestic competitors, customers, universities or internal departments) in an emerging market. Our findings suggest that Chinese firms that source new product ideas from leading firms in foreign countries achieve overwhelmingly superior performance along financial, customer and technological dimensions. Implications to the managers and policy makers are also discussed.     

How do strategic factor markets respond to rivalry in the product market?

This paper explores the interplay between product market, strategic factor market, and resource development. More competition in the product market makes resource buyers bid higher for resources, as the value of trying to preempt the resources is higher. Holding other initial conditions constant, resources are developed more in industries with factor markets than in industries without. When buyers of resources cannot integrate more than one resource, developers choose to develop either at a low or high level, generating a type of heterogeneity that would not arise otherwise. Changes in the intensity of competition in the product market can have the opposite effect on resource development efforts depending on the presence or absence of factor markets. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.