Identifying New Product Successes in China

To examine the generalizability of the work of Cooper regarding the correlates of new product success and failure, Mark Parry and Michael Song surveyed new product development managers at 129 state-owned enterprises in the People's Republic of China. Their analysis of 258 reported product successes and failures indicated that relative product advantage and the acquisition of marketing information were highly correlated with new product success, just as in Canada. In addition, several factors not significantly correlated with success in Canadian firms emerged as significant correlates of success in the PRC. These included the level of competitive activity, the timing of the product launch, and the level of proficiency in executing activities in the early stages of the product development process.     

The R&D Effectiveness Index: A Metric for Product Development Performance

Measuring the overall success of product development efforts has been frustrating because there is no generally recognized metric to measure effectiveness. The R&D Effectiveness Index is introduced to address this need. It measures effectiveness by comparing the profit from new products to the investment in new product development. The article provides the details for calculating the index along with alternative interpretations. Michael McGrath and Michael Romeri report that this index was validated through a study of 45 electronic systems companies. They found a strong relationship between the R&D Effectiveness Index and other performance factors and believe that the R&D Effectiveness Index can be used to compare performance, measure improvement, and evaluate business units. Its application is illustrated in a case study.     

Managing Relations Between R&D and Marketing in New Product Development Projects

This article examines the R&D/marketing interface conditions found within an extensive data base of new product development innovation projects. The incidence of different types of problems between these two important functions are analyzed and the effects of these observations on project outcomes are discussed. The article contains a number of recommendations for increasing the success rates of innovation projects by using a model that improves conditions at the R&D/marketing interface.     

Applying Hedonic Pricing Models and Factorial Surveys at Parker Pen to Enhance New Product Success

Walking the path from new product concept to successful commercialization is a tightrope act. Product developers must carefully balance a variety of factors, including predictions of consumer price sensitivity as well as which combination of product attributes will be most valued by the intended market. A well-chosen mix of analytical tools can enhance a firm's chances of accurately predicting market demand. Chuck Tomkovick and Kathryn E. Dobie describe how the integration of two product attribute assessment techniques–hedonic pricing models and factorial surveys–allows product designers to more accurately gauge price sensitivity and market receptivity to new product designs. They also describe how these analytical tools were used to improve decision-making in product development at the Parker Pen Company, and they discuss the role these tools can play in facilitating the transition from concept to commercialization. Hedonic price analysis is an econometric method for determining the value purchasers place on attributes of existing products. In product development, factorial surveys are used to identify the value members of the target market place on new product concepts and prototypes. When used in combination with identified hedonic prices, the responses to a factorial survey allow product developers to predict consumer willingness-to-pay for various combinations of new product attributes. Following development of prototypes for two new product lines, product developers at the Parker Pen Company used hedonic pricing models and factorial surveys as a means for reducing demand uncertainty and for clarifying what consumers were willing to pay for various combinations of product attributes that were under consideration. The integration and use of these techniques involved a five-step process of target market identification, product attribute identification, hedonic price estimation, administering of the factorial survey, and determination of consumer willingness-to-pay. The results of these analyses allowed Parker Pen to better focus product development efforts on those design elements for which test market customers indicated both demand and willingness-to-pay. The Parker Pen Company found hedonic pricing and factorial surveys useful for predicting both the rate and the degree of change in consumers' marginal utility for specific product attributes. The usefulness of these techniques also extends beyond the early stages of new product conception. These techniques are helpful in the development and implementation of dynamic new product marketing mix strategies, including such elements as product design, pricing, channel selection, and promotion.     

Gay tourism in a sun and beach destination

Gay tourism is seen as an attractive business opportunity for many destinations. However, there is a lack of research at identifying the resources necessary for success in this type of tourism. This work is aimed at filling this gap by using the premises of the resource based view and transfers them to the analysis of territories to identify the valuable resources that are required for a sun and beach destination to attract gay tourists. To this end, this study has focused on a gay tourism sub niche, tourists lodged in gay-exclusive resorts in Gran Canaria. In order to confirm the validity of this approach, the relationship between the satisfaction of gay tourists and the condition of the valuable resources was studied by means of a robust statistical new method, namely Bayesian model averaging. That method permits the inclusion of uncertainty in the theoretical models that determine destination competitiveness, thus reducing many of the problems that arise in the application of the more conventional statistical methods in this type of analysis.     

Enhancing employee creativity in the Chinese context: The mediating role of employee self-concordance

This study applies the theory of self-concordance and adopts the multi-level analysis approach to examine the mediating effect of employee self-concordance, a core component of intrinsic motivation, on the relationship between social-contextual factors and creativity using hotel industry data obtained from Mainland China. The hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) results from a multisource sample reveal that the three social-contextual variables (i.e., organizational modernity, empowering leadership, and coworkers support and helping) were associated with employee self-concordance, which in turn was associated with employee creativity. Moreover, employee self-concordance fully mediated the three social-contextual variables and creativity. This study shows that organization environment plays a significant role in predicting employee creativity. The implications of the findings for future research and their practical applications in the hotel industry are discussed.     

Attitudes,norms and difficulties underlying road sharing intentions as drivers and cyclists: Evidence from the Czech Republic

Cycling-inclusive urban planning is attracting attention worldwide because of the environmental, health, economic, and transport benefits inherent to cycling from the individual and the societal perspectives. The Czech Republic is one of the emerging cycling countries that are trying to promote and support cycling, but cycling mode shares are low because of the poor quality of the scarce infrastructure and the psychological barrier of the perceived lack of safety when cycling in mixed traffic. This study takes a multimodal approach based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour and focuses on the factors underlying the willingness to share the road from the perspective of cyclists and drivers: positive attitudes toward cycling, positive attitudes toward cyclists’ behavior, social norms toward cycling and anxiety to share the road. A web-based questionnaire was tailor-designed and administered in the Czech Republic via social networks, web forums, and the Civinet network, and a hybrid bivariate-ordered model tested the behavioral framework. Results show that the willingness to share the road as a cyclist or as a driver relates positively to positive attitudes towards cycling and cyclists’ behavior, and negatively to the anxiety of sharing the road. Moreover, mediator effects are observed and a clear relation emerges between the experience on the road as both a cyclist and a driver on the willingness to share the road as a cyclist. Lastly, results show that the factors underlying road sharing intentions are related significantly to gender, travel habits, and perceived personal and infrastructure-related barriers to cycling.     

Catching Fire: Institutional Interdependencies in Union‐Facilitated Knowledge Diffusion

I find that school union representatives’ ‘boundary spanning’ communications throughout the school district predict the diffusion of knowledge between schools. Hence, my data reveal school union representatives as critical conduits for improvement‐related knowledge transfer and innovation. Yet, I also find that these external networks interact strongly with the level of workforce participation characterizing each school: The effects of external networks on internal knowledge diffusion are considerably stronger in more participative schools compared to less participative schools. This research contributes to industrial relations scholarship by demonstrating how union‐related institutions can foster unique social structures that directly strengthen innovation‐related capabilities, as well as how the efficacy of these networks depends on managerial norms at different areas of the organization. This study is also of timely practical relevance at a time when labour unions are increasingly painted as obstacles to, rather than potential facilitators of, improvement and innovation.     

Learning patterns in early stage R&D projects: empirical evidence from the fibre raw material technology project in the Netherlands

Past research has reported that learning processes in early stage R&D are either chaotic, or absent. We challenge this finding by elaborating Van de Ven et al.’s trial‐and‐error learning model and explore an alternative conceptualization. We explored the combinations of positive and negative outcomes and action course continuation and modification. We use data gathered in an R&D setting of a 4‐years pre‐competitive knowledge generation project in the Dutch paper and board industry. Whereas the Van de Ven and Polley (1992) approach applied on our data also would lead us to conclude that ‘no learning’ would happen, our decomposed model identified three distinct learning patterns: (1) a virtuous pattern of positive outcomes resulting in continuations of action courses; (2) a vacuous pattern of negative outcomes resulting in modifications of action courses; and (3) a verification pattern of positive outcomes resulting in modifications of action courses. We observed the virtuous and verification patterns during the first 2 years and virtuous and vacuous learning in the second 2 years. These results might be useful for R&D managers since they provide insight into how an early stage R&D project can develop and where managers might intervene and adjust action courses.     

What do Agricultural Income and Productivity Measurements Really Mean?

Statistical data on labour productivity and income in agriculture reveal large discrepancies between various EC member states, both with respect to their absolute levels and in relation to non-farm productivity and income in the respective countries. Insofar as they appear to reflect the failure of markets in allocating agricultural resources efficiently, and seem to be inconsistent with conventional wisdom concerning structural adjustment of agriculture, however, it can be seen that those data are misleading to a large extent. Based on a simple model of optimal time allocation between farm and non-farm activities of members of farm households, it is demonstrated that farm labour productivity and income must be different according to differences in the relation of farm to non-farm labour supply. The implications concerning international, interregional, intersectoral and intertemporal comparisons of income and productivity are discussed as well as the relevance of market failure in agriculture.