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.     

The R&D and marketing cooperation across new product development stages: An empirical study of Taiwan's IT industry

This study extends the new product development (NPD) process research to a new environmental context (Taiwan's IT industry) and a new business type (original design manufacturing, ODM). Taiwan's IT industry has achieved a very outstanding performance during the last two decades. The island's experience is quite valuable for those emerging countries that are struggling to transform themselves from producing low-value goods to making high-technology products. After analyzing the data collected from 153 research and development (R&D) and marketing managers in Taiwanese IT firms, this study finds that the higher the perceived importance of R&D-marketing cooperation is, the higher the attained level of R&D-marketing cooperation will be. Consequently, a better NPD performance can be achieved. This study additionally reports that a firm that has adopted a Defender innovation strategy attains a lower level of R&D-marketing cooperation, and has a poorer NPD performance than those firms that adopted either Prospector or Analyzer innovation strategies. Finally, environmental uncertainty has no significant impacts on the perceived importance and the attained level of R&D-marketing cooperation.     

Integrating the R&D and Patent Functions: Implications for New Product Performance

This paper examines the impact of cross‐functional integration between the research and development (R&D) and the patent functions on new product development (NPD) performance. The attitudinal (collaboration) and the behavioral (contributions of the patent function to NPD) dimension of cross‐functional integration between the R&D and the patent functions are distinguished. It is also investigated if the level of innovativeness moderates the relationship between the attitudinal and the behavioral dimension of cross‐functional integration between the R&D and the patent department and NPD performance. The four hypotheses are tested based on a multi‐informant sample of 101 NPD projects which are nested within 72 technology‐based firms or strategic business units from multiple industries in Germany. The results show that the attitudinal and the behavioral dimensions of cross‐functional integration between the R&D and the patent functions have a significant and positive impact on NPD performance. This lends empirical support for the notion expressed in the literature that certain managerial capabilities are important for understanding the effect of patenting on appropriability outcomes such as value creation and performance. The level of cross‐functional integration between the patent and the R&D functions appears to be one of these critical patent management capabilities that affect the returns from investments into patents. There is support for the hypothesis that the context matters for the effect of cross‐functional integration between the R&D and the patent functions on NPD performance. In line with the initial hypothesis, the level of innovativeness positively moderates the impact of the behavioral dimension of cross‐functional integration between the R&D and the patent department on NPD performance. In contrast to the initial hypothesis, the findings reveal no moderating effect of the level of innovativeness on the link between the attitudinal dimension of cross‐functional integration between the R&D and the patent department and NPD performance. This implies that joint objectives and an open and trustful working relationship between the R&D and the patent functions are not sufficient for achieving higher NPD performance if firms aim to develop very innovative products. In the case of highly innovative products, the actual behavior, that is, the specific contributions of the patent department to the NPD project, matters. Overall, these findings have important implications for improving performance by means of effectively integrating the patent and the R&D functions during NPD.     

International R&D partnerships and intrafirm R&D–marketing–production integration of manufacturing firms in emerging economies

Although cross-functional integration is important for research and development (R&D), research about implications of cross-functional integration has been rather sparse. In new product development (NPD), no study to date has examined intrafirm as well as interfirm integration of key functions such as intrafirm R&D–marketing–production together with interfirm integration of host R&D–partner R&D. Such marketing and operations interface contributes to a better understanding of how operational and marketing activities impact on competitiveness and firm performance. This study collected data from 202 electronics manufacturing firms operating in an emerging economy, mainland China and Hong Kong with international R&D partnerships. The findings indicate that a high level of R&D integration between firms improved NPD performance when cross-functional integration is based on existing rather than new product configurations and key technologies. Interestingly, in high distance situations, cross-functional integration in the production validation stage generated NPD success. The findings show that high environmental uncertainties lead to a high level of host and partner firms R&D integration. However, product newness has no significant effects on R&D integration in any of the NPD stages.     

Exploring New Product Development Project Review Practices*

Most organizations use new product development (NPD) processes that consist of activities and review points. Activities basically solve problems and gather and produce information about the viability of successfully completing the project. Interspersed between the development activities are review points where project information is reviewed and a decision is made to either go on to the next stage of the process, stop it prior to completion, or hold it until more information is gathered and a better decision can be made. The review points are for controlling risk, prioritizing projects, and allocating resources, and the review team typically is cross‐disciplinary, comprising senior managers from marketing, finance, research and development (R&D), or manufacturing. Over the past four decades, research has greatly advanced knowledge with respect to NPD activities; however, much less is known about review practices. For this reason, the present paper reports findings of a study on NPD project review practices from 425 Product Development & Management Association (PDMA) members. The focus is on three decision points in the NPD process common across organizations (i.e., initial screen, prior to development and testing, and prior to commercialization). In this paper, the number of (1) review points used, (2) review criteria, (3) decision makers on review committees and the proficiency with which various evaluation criteria are used are compared across incremental and radical projects and across functional areas (i.e., marketing, technical, financial). Furthermore, the associations between these NPD review practices and new product performance are examined. Selected results show that more review points are used for radical NPD projects than incremental ones, and this is related to a relatively lower rate of survival for radical projects. The findings also show that the number of criteria used to evaluate NPD projects increases as NPD projects progress and that the number of review team members grows over the stages, too. Surprisingly, the results reveal that more criteria are used to evaluate incremental NPD projects than radical ones. As expected, managers appear to more proficiently use evaluation criteria when making project continuation/termination decisions for incremental projects; they use these criteria less proficiently during the development of radical projects, precisely when proficiency is most critical. At each review point, technical criteria were found to be the most frequently used type for incremental projects, and financial criteria were the most commonly used type for radical ones. Importantly, only review proficiency is significantly associated with performance; the number of review points, review team size, and number of review criteria are not associated with new product performance. Furthermore, only the coefficient for proficiently using marketing criteria was significantly related to new product program performance; the proficiency of using financial and technical information has no association with performance. Finally, across the three focal review points of the NPD process in this study, only the coefficient for proficiency at the first review point, (i.e., the initial screen) is significantly greater than zero. The results are discussed with respect to research and managerial practice, and future research directions are offered.     

Exploring the Nonlinear Impact of Organizational Integration on New Product Market Success

This article explores the nonlinear relationship between organizational integration and new product market success (NPMS). The concept of organizational integration was measured by assessing the degree of integration among various groups of people involved in the development of new products including new product development (NPD) teams that are typically the focal points of NPD efforts. New product market success was measured by examining four often‐used measures of NPD success. The mail survey research approach was used to gather empirical data from NPD managers in three major industries. The data gathered from this survey process were used as the basis from which to extract information to address this study's major research questions, which include: (1) How is the degree of new product market success related to the nonlinear degree to which groups of people (including NPD teams) integrate during NPD processes? and (2) How is the degree of new product market success related to the nonlinear degree to which separate groups of people (e.g., customers, suppliers, and functional departments) integrate during NPD processes? This study found that high levels of organizational integration (overall organizational integration and supplier organizational integration) during NPD processes are associated with high levels of new product market success. Additionally, this study found that the relationship between new product market success and organizational integration (customer organizational integration and functional organization integration) during NPD processes exhibit nonlinear, U‐shaped relationships. Therefore, the first important finding of this study confirms that various forms of organizational integration impact in a positive way the market success of new products. This suggests that management responsible for all NPD projects should consciously integrate important groups of people to support such developments. This study's findings also confirm and imply that new product developers in the studied industries should integrate marketing and research and development (R&D) over the duration of the NPD process. This suggests that new product managers must be proactive to assure that members of NPD teams are actively engaged with groups of supporting people within and outside new‐product–producing organizations. Unlike prior research, a major finding of this study suggests that the association between organizational integration and new product market success does not form inverted U‐shaped relationships. Data from this research imply that new product market success is linearly influenced by overall and supplier organizational integration. However, this study's data suggest that new product market success is nonlinearly influenced by customer and functional organizational integration. This study's data suggest that when customer organizational integration and/or functional organizational integration is increased, new product market success can be increased at a rate which is greater than a linear rate.     

Building Dynamic Capabilities in New Product Development through Intertemporal Integration

Although successful development of a given product may help explain the current success of a firm, creating longer‐term competitive advantage demands significantly more attention to developing and nurturing dynamic integration capabilities. These capabilities propel product development activities in ways that build on and develop technological and marketing capabilities for future product development efforts and create platforms for future product development. In this article, we develop a conceptual model of a dynamic integration process in product development, which we call intertemporal integration (ITI). In its most general form ITI is defined as the process of collecting, interpreting, and internalizing technological and marketing capabilities from past new product development projects and incorporating that knowledge in a systematic and purposeful manner into the development of future new products. Research propositions outlining the relationship of ITI to performance are presented. We provide specific examples of managerial mechanisms to be used in implementing ITI. We conclude with implications for research and practice. Effective management of ITI can increase new product development success and long‐term competitive advantage. This implies that management needs to engage in activities that gather and transform information and knowledge from prior development projects so that it can be used in future development projects. Project audits, design databases in computer‐aided design (CAD) systems, engineering notebooks, collections of test and experimental results, market research and test market results, project management databases, and other activities will all be important in the acquisition of knowledge from prior new product development (NPD) projects. Managers also should initiate the creation and maintenance of databases of technical and marketing information from prior projects, job performance reports, seminars and workshops related to technological issues and advances, and publication of technical journals to assist in the process of knowledge acquisition. Similarly, techniques such as assigning project managers from earlier development projects, reusing key components and technologies, and developing a company‐wide methodology for managing projects can be used to boost the application and use of knowledge.     

Proactive/Responsive Market Orientation and Marketing—Research and Development Integration

The level of integration between the marketing and research and development (R&D) functions may be gauged by degree of communication, information sharing, and collaboration between the functions during the new product development process. This article examines how a firm's strategic choice regarding market orientation may influence the relationship between marketing and R&D personnel, and how this relationship may affect organizational success. Under examination are both the responsive form of market orientation, in which a firm focuses on immediate customer needs and tends to be market driven, and the proactive form, in which the firm focuses on future market needs and tends to be invention driven. It is theorized that responsive market orientation will be more positively related to marketing‐R&D integration due to the market‐driven nature of the orientation. Conversely, it is theorized proactive market orientation will be more positively related to organizational success than responsive market orientation due to the innovation‐driven nature of the orientation. The study was implemented via a Web‐based survey and data analysis was performed using structural equation modeling techniques. The results of this study provide empirical evidence that both proactive and responsive market orientation exhibit a positive relationship with marketing–R&D integration, indicating that both forms of market orientation may lead to closer collaboration between the marketing and R&D functions. Despite the assumption that a proactive orientation is driven by innovation and technology in which R&D may play a more significant role, there is evidence that a high degree of synergy is developed between the groups when the focus is on future market needs. A market‐driven responsive orientation by necessity requires high integration between departments to commercialize products in a timely manner to meet current market needs. Proactive market orientation exhibits a positive relationship with market performance, whereas responsive market orientation does not. The result may show evidence of the “new product paradox," whereby developing products to address immediate market needs may result in lower market performance because the new products may be replacements for obsolete offerings or are actually cannibalizing sales of existing products.     

New Product Development: Impact of Project Characteristics and Development Practices on Performance

Concurrent product development process and integrated product development teams have emerged as the two dominant new product development (NPD) “best practices” in the literature. Yet empirical evidence of their impact on product development success remains inconclusive. This paper draws upon organizational information processing theory (OIPT) to explore how these two dominant NPD best practices and two key aspects of NPD project characteristics (i.e., project uncertainty and project complexity) directly and jointly affect the NPD performance. Contrary to the “best practice” literature, the analysis, based on 266 NPD projects from three industries (i.e., automotive, electronics, and machinery) across nine countries (i.e., Austria, Finland, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Spain, Sweden, and the United States), found no evidence of any direct impact of process concurrency or team integration on overall NPD performance. Instead, there is evidence of negative impact of the interaction between project uncertainty and concurrent NPD process and positive impact of the interaction between project complexity and team integration on overall NPD performance. Moreover, the study found no evidence of any direct negative impact of project uncertainty or complexity on overall NPD performance as suggested in the literature, but found evidence of a direct positive relationship between project complexity and overall NPD performance. The practical implications of these results are significant. First, neither process concurrency nor team integration should be embraced universally as best practice. Second, process concurrency should be avoided in projects with high uncertainty (i.e., when working with unfamiliar product, market, or technology). Finally, team integration should be encouraged for complex product development projects. For a simple product a loosely integrated team or a more centralized decision process may work well. However, as project complexity increases, team integration becomes essential for improved product development. There is no one‐size‐fits‐all solution for managing NPD projects. The choice of a product development practice should be determined by the project characteristics.     

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.     

Strategic Alignment and New Product Development: Drivers and Performance Effects

Strategic alignment is widely accepted as a prerequisite for a firm's success, but insight into the role of alignment in, and its impact on, the new product development (NPD) process and its performance is less well developed. Most publications on this topic either focus on one form of alignment or on one or a limited set of NPD performance indicators. Furthermore, different and occasionally contradictory findings have been reported. NPD scholars have long argued for the importance of fit between context and NPD activities. However, this body of literature suffers from the same weakness: most publications have a limited scope and the findings are not always consistent with results reported previously. This study addresses these deficiencies by examining (1) the effects of various internal and external factors on different forms of alignment, and (2) the effects of these forms of alignment on a set of NPD performance indicators. Strategic planning and innovativeness appear to affect technological, market, and NPD‐marketing alignment positively. Environmental munificence is negatively associated with NPD‐marketing alignment, but has no effect on the two other forms of alignment. Technological change has a positive effect on technological alignment, a negative effect on NPD‐marketing alignment, but no effect on market alignment. These findings suggest that internal capabilities are more likely to be associated with the development of strategic alignment than environmental factors are. Furthermore, technological and NPD‐marketing alignment affect NPD performance positively, while market alignment does not have any significant performance effects.     

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.     

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.     

Technology Exploitation Paths: Combining Technological and Complementary Resources in New Product Development and Licensing

Technological resources in the form of patents, trade secrets, and know‐how have become key assets for modern enterprises. This paper addresses a critical issue in technology and innovation management, namely, the commercial exploitation of technological resources resulting from research and development (R&D) investments. Extracting economic value from these resources by maximizing the benefits for shareholders is an extremely challenging task because technological resources are intangible, idiosyncratic, uncertain, predominantly tacit, and with poorly defined property rights. In their attempt to extract the maximum value from their technological resources, firms increasingly combine their internal exploitation through new product development (NPD) with external exploitation through licensing. However, most existing studies on NPD and technology licensing have treated the two exploitation paths independently and in isolation, which has resulted in two separate research streams using different theories and addressing different managerial challenges. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to filling this gap by developing and testing a comprehensive conceptual framework that simultaneously considers the antecedents affecting the successful implementation of NPD and licensing strategies as well as their consequences on firm profitability. The paper in particular investigates the effects of the interplay between technological resources and three types of complementary resources, marketing, manufacturing, and relational. We test the model using structural equation modeling on a sample of 733 Spanish manufacturing firms observed from 2003 to 2007. The data provide support for the existence of different paths to market firm technologies: an internal path, whereby the ownership of technological resources fully explains NPD performance, and an external path, whereby high intensity of marketing and relational resources reinforces the positive effect of technological resources on licensing performance. This sustains the relevance of the resource‐based value‐enhancing effects of complementary resources in licensing, as opposed to the motivation‐reducing effects advanced by transaction cost‐based literature. Moreover, the empirical analysis shows a substitution effect between NPD and licensing, whereby their simultaneous pursuit at intense levels is associated with lower profit margins. This provides evidence of the much theorized, but seldom tested, rent dissipation effect. These findings offer several contributions to research on licensing, NPD, open innovation, and the resource‐based view of the firm. On a managerial level, they suggest that achieving maximum value from proprietary technologies may not entail exploiting them both through external and internal paths. Managers are also informed that the resource combinations that enhance licensing performance include marketing and relational resources.     

“Squeezing R&D”: A Study of Organizational Slack and Knowledge Creation in NPD,Using the SECI Model

During new product development (NPD), functional areas such as marketing, R&D, and manufacturing work together to understand customer needs, create product concepts, and solve technical issues. NPD is dependent on the creation of new knowledge and the interplay between tacit knowledge (knowledge that is difficult to articulate and codify) and explicit knowledge (knowledge that can be codified and documented). Knowledge creation requires time and resources, and the dichotomy facing senior management is how much spare capacity in NPD teams—so‐called organizational slack—is appropriate. Too much organizational slack and precious development resources will be wasted; but when slack is eliminated, there is a danger that knowledge creation will be severely hindered. There have been very few studies of organizational slack at the project level, and so the aim of our research was to examine the impact of changes in organizational slack on knowledge creation in NPD projects. Six projects were studied at two companies, over a two‐year period. Multiple sources of data were used to determine how changes in organizational slack impacted knowledge creation, which was operationalized using Nonaka's socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization (SECI) model. It was found that the creation of knowledge in NPD projects is susceptible to changes in organizational slack. A significant finding was that every time there were changes in organizational slack, there was always some impact on knowledge creation. Increased slack enabled knowledge creation; but, importantly, the impacts of decreasing organizational slack were often very negative and disrupted the work of NPD teams, particularly at the end of projects. Managers who feel that “squeezing R&D” is important should think again—their action might disrupt knowledge creation and compromise innovation.     

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.     

Innovation Performance in New Product Development Teams in China's Technology Ventures: The Role of Behavioral Integration Dimensions and Collective Efficacy

In emerging markets, technology ventures increasingly rely on new product development (NPD) teams to generate creative ideas and to mold these innovative ideas into streams of new products or services. However, little is known about how behavioral integration (a behavioral team process) and collective efficacy (a motivational team process) jointly facilitate or inhibit team innovation performance in emerging markets—especially in China, the world's largest emerging‐market setting with collectivist and high power distance cultures. Drawing on social cognitive theory and behavioral integration research, this article elucidates the relationships between behavioral integration dimensions (i.e., collaborative behavior, information exchange, and joint decision‐making) and innovation performance and also examines how collective efficacy moderates these relationships in China's NPD teams. Results from a sample of 96 NPD teams in China's technology ventures reveal that information exchange is positively associated with innovation performance. Collaborative behavior positively but marginally influences innovation performance, whereas joint decision‐making does not relate to innovation performance. Moreover, collective efficacy demonstrates an important moderating role. Specifically, both collaborative behavior and joint decision‐making are more positively associated with innovation performance when collective efficacy is higher. In contrast, information exchange is less positively associated with innovation performance when collective efficacy is higher. This study makes important theoretical contributions to the literature on team innovation and behavioral integration in emerging markets by offering a better understanding of how behavioral and motivational team processes jointly shape innovation performance in China's NPD teams. This study also extends social cognitive theory by identifying collective efficacy as a boundary condition for the overall effectiveness of behavioral integration dimensions. In particular, this study highlights the condition under which behavioral integration dimensions facilitate or inhibit NPD team innovation performance in China.     

Marketing's lateral influence strategies and new product team comprehension in high-tech companies: A cross-national investigation

In high-tech companies marketing often has to strive for gaining influence in the new product development (NPD) process, and uses political strategies to supplement its low formal power. This study examined the antecedents and outcomes of marketing's use of upward appeal and coalition building influence strategies in NPD, in Chinese and Australian high-tech companies. We proposed that marketing's use of both strategies is related to power sources (i.e., R&D department's power, marketing's information power and personal stake in the NPD outcomes) and NPD context characteristics (i.e., formalization of NPD activity, and R&D-marketing interaction). Results show that both power sources and NPD context are related to the use of lateral influence strategies by marketing participants in NPD, with notable differences in potency and direction between China and Australia. For example, higher R&D-marketing interaction increases the use of lateral influence strategies in Australia but decreases it in China. On the contrary, lateral influence strategies produce similar effects in the two cultural settings: while coalition building increases NPD team comprehension of marketing issues in high-tech firms, upward appeal appears to hinder it, especially in the Chinese collectivistic context. We conclude with implications for future research and practice.     

Differential Effects of the Primary Forms of Cross Functional Integration on Product Development Cycle Time

In markets characterized by high rates of technological and market change product life cycles tend to be shorter, resulting in the increased importance of competing on the basis of product development cycle time. For firms operating in these dynamic market environments, competing on the basis of cycle time may not only be a source of competitive advantage, but in some industries may actually be essential for survival.
In this investigation the relative importance of five forms of cross functional integration and R&D integration of information or knowledge from past projects were explored in terms of their effects on product development cycle time. The five forms of cross functional integration included R&D/marketing integration, R&D/customer integration, R&D/manufacturing integration, R&D/supplier integration, and strategic partnerships. A sample of 65 U.S. and Scandinavian high technology firms (or strategic business units) were studied. The sample included firms from the computer, telecommunications, instruments, specialty chemicals, biotechnology, and software industries.
The results demonstrated that R&D integration of knowledge from past projects explained the largest degree of variation in product development cycle time. R&D/marketing integration and R&D/customer integration explained the next largest degree of variation in cycle time reduction. Cross cultural generalizability tests demonstrated that the results were generalizable across the U.S. and Scandinavian samples of firms. In addition, the results were found to be generalizable across industry or product category for five of the six forms of integration.     

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.