Team member experiences in new product development: views from the trenches

Although cross-functional teams are often used for new product development (NPD), many companies struggle to implement them successfully. Through in-depth interviews with 71 team members from 18 companies in a variety of technology-based industries, this study focuses on the experiences of the people who actually do much of the work of NPD (team members) and explores their perceptions and attitudes about cross-functional team assignments. The purpose of our study is to identify the factors that influence and shape NPD team member experiences. Our results suggest that although NPD work can be rewarding and productive, NPD team members are often neglected by other team members, project leaders, and senior management. This sense of neglect has important implications for all of these constituencies, but particularly for senior management.     

Do upscale restaurant owners use wine lists as a differentiation strategy?

The present paper studies various criteria used by upscale restaurant owners to differentiate their restaurants and to define their positioning. In particular, we studied several wine list attributes. Through a cluster analysis and a correspondence factor analysis based on different objective wine list characteristics, we obtain two main differentiated profiles of restaurants according to the relative importance of their wine list in comparison with food menu: wine selection and complementarity. Upscale restaurants need to define their positioning strategy and elaborate their wine lists according to their strategy.     

Determinants of IT Usage and New Product Performance*

Explosive growth of information technologies (IT) has prompted interest in examining the role of IT in new product development (NPD). Through desktop software and Web‐based tools, IT has been used to aid idea generation and product testing as well as for NPD activities such as process and portfolio management. Recent research suggests, however, that a gap exists between IT availability and usage. Given the importance of IT in creating business value through the development of new products and services, the present study seeks to identify factors that affect IT usage. Further, anecdotal evidence and conceptual studies intimate that the usage of IT tools for NPD can shorten time to market, can improve product quality, and can increase productivity. However, empirical substantiation of this impact is mostly nonexistent. The current study investigates the relationship between IT usage and two measures of new product performance: speed to market and market performance. Employing a mail‐survey methodology, the study uses data from a sample of practitioner members from the Product Development & Management Association to examine the effect of project risk, existence of a champion, autonomy, innovative climate, IT infrastructure, and IT embeddedness on the extent of IT usage. These data are also used to explore the impact of IT usage on speed to market and market performance. The results indicate that project risk, existence of a champion, and IT embeddedness positively affect the extent of IT usage for NPD. Additionally, IT usage positively and significantly influences the performance of the new product in the marketplace. Surprisingly, and contrary to popular belief, IT usage does not have any impact on speed to market. An important implication of this study is that IT usage influences performance but not in the way managers expect. Specifically, IT usage does not seem to affect speed to market but rather positively impacts the performance of the new product in the marketplace. This result suggests that IT usage in NPD provides far more value to firms than previously thought and provides evidence to support greater investments in IT for product development efforts. Other implications of the study are that unless IT is embedded into the NPD process and champions for IT tools exist, chances are that IT will not be used and its benefits will not be realized.     

Modeling weekly Canary tomato exports

The European tomato market is characterized by a constant process of dynamic adjustment towards equilibrium. Furthermore, Canary Island tomato exports cause a high seasonal impact on market prices in the winter period. In these circumstances, an adequate distribution of weekly shipments throughout the year could contribute to maximize producers' profits. Moreover, Canary export levels show some degree of instability, clearly related to the changes in the EU trade rules and there is a long period, in the summer, without exports. The aim of this article is to analyze the long‐term movements and, particularly, the seasonal pattern of Canary Island tomato exports throughout the last two decades. To observe more clearly the exporter's decisions, weekly data have been used. The instabilities in the long‐term behavior of the series and the specific nature of the seasonal pattern should be taken into account, to capture the performance of exports accurately. Thus, this analysis is carried out using the structural approach to time series analysis, and the usefulness of spline functions as a tool capable of modeling seasonal variations for which the period does not remain the same over time is shown.     

Speeding Up New Product Development: The Effects of Leadership Style and Source of Technology

This article reports the results of a study whose purpose was to investigate factors that contribute to the faster development of new products. Edward McDonough and Gloria Barczak collected data from 30 new product development projects in 12 British companies. They investigated the impact of leadership style and the source of the technologies employed in the project (i.e., internally developed or externally acquired) on speed of development. Their results suggest that leadership style influences speed of development. Moreover, the source of the technologies used in the project moderates the relationship between leadership style and speed of development.     

The Role of Retail Equity,Value and Relational Benefits in Building B2B Relationships in Retailing

Abstract

The present paper aims to examine if variables widely studied in B2C contribute to building strong relationships in B2B markets. Moreover, it analyzes the existence of differences across retailers related to percentage of purchases from the main supplier. Through a personal survey to retail store managers regarding their relationships with their main suppliers, a structural equation model is estimated through PLS to test the hypothesized relations between retail equity, value, relational benefits, trust, and commitment. A multi-group analysis is performed to test the moderating role of the percentage of purchases from the main supplier. Three types of relational benefits identified have unequal influence on relationship value. In particular, special treatment benefits and social benefits, together with retail equity, emerge as the main drivers of value in the relationship between retailers and their main suppliers. The percentage of purchases from the main supplier plays a moderating role in some of these relations. This research provides evidence in the sense that, in the relations held by retailers with their main suppliers, retail equity contributes to relationship value creation. Relational benefits are relevant in building B2B relations since special treatment and social benefits have a positive influence on value that is positively related to trust and commitment. To build strong relations with their customers, suppliers of retailers should mainly concentrate their efforts on building brand equity and providing evidence of the existence of special treatment benefits beyond the service delivered, in view of its ultimate influence on customer trust and commitment.     

A two-step approach to account for unobserved spatial heterogeneity

A two-step approach to account for unobserved spatial heterogeneity. Spatial Economic Analysis. Empirical analysis in economics often faces the difficulty that the data are correlated and heterogeneous in some unknown form. Spatial econometric models have been widely used to account for dependence structures, but the problem of directly dealing with unobserved spatial heterogeneity has been largely unexplored. The problem can be serious particularly if we have no prior information justified by economic theory. In this paper we propose a two-step procedure to identify endogenously spatial regimes in the first step and to account for spatial dependence in the second step. This procedure is applied to hedonic house price analysis.     

Measuring service quality in Ghana: a crossvergence cultural perspective

This paper develops an instrument for measuring service quality in Ghana aimed at capturing a crossvergence perspective and to compare the efficacy of the new instrument (GhanQual) with SERVPERF and PAKSERV within the Ghanaian cultural context. Data were collected using SERVPERF and PAKSERV scale items. Using a structured questionnaire, data were collected from a sample of banking and hospital customers in Ghana and analysed using exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and regression analysis. The new instrument demonstrated superiority over SERVPERF and PAKSERV and is recommended as the most appropriate instrument for measuring service quality within the Ghanaian cultural context. The study identified the important factors service managers in Ghana can utilise in measuring and managing service quality and is believed to be the first of its kind to propose and develop a crossvergence perspective service quality instrument as well as to compare the efficacy of SERVPERF and PAKSERV in a single study. Extension of this study in other countries is recommended as this study was contextualised within the Ghanaian cultural context. Nevertheless, this study provides a starting point for developing cultural-specific and crossvergence perspective instruments for measuring service quality.     

An Economic Analysis of Targeting Soil Conservation Measures with Respect to Off-site Water Quality

This paper analyses the advantages and disadvantages of targeting soil conservation measures on the basis of off-site water quality goals. The Stratford Avon watershed in Perth County and the Big Creek watershed in Middlesex County, both located in southwestern Ontario, are used as case studies. Targeting criteria, used as proxies for measuring the contribution to off-farm damage from particular parcels of crop land, are based on the physical characteristics of the parcels. Alternative conservation tillage practices include fall chisel ploughing, ridge planting, no tillage and buffer strips. At each level of the targeting criteria, the reduction in off-farm damage is estimated using the Guelph Model for Evaluating the Effects of Agricultural Management Systems on Erosion and Sedimentation (GAMES). Economic targeting criteria are based on the value of improved water quality under a conservation practice minus the on-farm costs of adoption of that practice. Targeting conservation policies on the basis of reduction of off-farm damages can result in greater efficiency in public policy. The authors conclude that further efforts in targeting conservation policies have the potential to improve the cost effectiveness of soil conservation programs if technical and administrative problems can be overcome. L'article analyse le pour et le contre du ciblage des mesures de conservation des sols sous l'angle de la qualité de l'eau à l'aval. Le bassin versant Stratford Avon dans le comité de Perth et celui de Big Creek dans le comté de Middlesex, tous deux situés dans le sud-ouest de l'Ontario, sont utilisés comme études de cas. Les critères de ciblage utilisés comme valeurs d'approximation dans la détermination de la part des dégâts causés à l'aval qui est attribuable à des parcelles agricoles données, sont basés sur les caractères physiques des parcelles. Les diverses pratiques de travail de conservation comparées sont la labour au chisel, la culture sur billons, la culture sans labour et l'établissement de bandes riveraines. A chaque niveau des critères de ciblage, la réduction des dégâts infligés à l'aval des exploitations est estimée selon le Modèle d'évaluation des effets des systèmes d'exploitation agricole sur l'érosion et la sédimentation de l'Université de Guelph (GAMES). Les critères de ciblage économiques reposent sur la valeur attribuée à l'amélioration de la qualité de l'eau par une pratique de conservation donnée, moins les coûts réels d'adoption de l'exploitant à cette pratique. Le ciblage des politiques de conservation en fonction de la réduction des dégâts causés à l'aval de l'exploitation peut rendre plus efficientes les politiques du secteur public. Il ressort de ces études que les politiques de ciblage des mesures de conservation offrent la possibilité d'améliorer la rentabilité des programmes de conservation du sol, pour autant parvienne à surmonter les problèmes techniques et administratifs.