Strategies for new product development

Guidelines are offered for following the tortuous trail of new- product development. To succeed, you must first accumulate many likely new-product concepts, rather than just one or two. They all should be subjected to preliminary market research at the same time that they are being investigated for their production feasibility. Feedback-loops must be built in to bridge and reflect results from these simultaneous processes, and the concepts themselves must be allowed to change and undergo a gradual metamorphosis…or they must be allowed to die painlessly at this early stage. Finally, the survivors will achieve commercial success only through the optimism and preseverance of their ‘pilot’.     

The evolution of intellectual property strategy in innovation ecosystems: Uncovering complementary and substitute appropriability regimes

In this article, we attempt to extend and nuance the debate on intellectual property (IP) strategy, appropriation, and open innovation in dynamic and systemic innovation contexts. We present the case of four generations of mobile telecommunications systems (covering the period 1980–2015), and describe and analyze the co-evolution of strategic IP management and innovation ecosystems. Throughout this development, technologies and technological relationships were governed with different and shifting degrees of formality. Simultaneously, firms differentiated technology accessibility across actors and technologies to benefit from openness and appropriation of innovation. Our analysis shows that the discussion of competitiveness and appropriability needs to be expanded from the focal appropriability regime and complementary assets to the larger context of the innovation ecosystem and its cooperative and competitive actor relations, with dispersed complementary and substitute assets and technologies. Consequently, the shaping of complementary and substitute appropriability regimes is central when strategizing in dynamic and systemic innovation contexts. This holds important implications for the management of open innovation, innovation ecosystems, platforms, and coopetition.     

Trust,partner selection and innovation outcome in collaborative new product development

A key feature of collaboration in general and collaboration for innovation in particular is the existence of trust. Trust is important because it reduces the costs and risks involved in collaboration, while also increasing the overall performance. This article explores the role that trust plays during the selection of suppliers in new product development (NPD), and the outcome that reliance on trust has on the innovation effort. The research involves a case study of two organisations following contrasting approaches to NPD sourcing, but both relying on collaborative, long-term relationships. In both cases, we find goodwill trust as the key variable explaining the reliance on collaboration. We also find that over-reliance on goodwill trust and geographical proximity in selecting NPD suppliers leads to an emphasis on incremental innovation which hampers the ability of both organisations to engage in radical NPD.     

合作新产品开发资金及知识投入决策研究

针对现有对合作新产品开发投入的研究常常忽略投入资源的多样性,考虑同时投入知识和资金的情况下,合作参与者的最优投入决策问题． 通过构建 Stackelberg 博弈模型,分别讨论了只有资金投入和同时含有资金与知识投入时,领导者和跟随者的投入情况,并对比研究了两种情况下合作双方投入决策的异同． 研究表明: 不同资源投入时,合作形成条件亦不相同,即只有在领导者收益比例更大时,领导者才可能考虑资金和知识的同时投入; 通过改变资金投入量、知识投入量和研发努力程度,可调整知识溢出水平以促使合作开发成功．     

The moderating effect of product complexity on new product development and supply chain management integration

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether product complexity moderates the impact of integration programs in both new product development (NPD) and supply chain (SC) management on operational performance. Results are based on statistical analyses of data collected from an international sample of manufacturing firms through the fifth edition of the International Manufacturing Strategy Survey (IMSS 5). The main findings are that NPD and SC integration do have an impact on performance, while product complexity alone has not. When considering the moderating effect, complexity has no impact on NPD integration, while there is a negative moderating impact on SC integration. This study bridges together different streams of research, showing how both NPD and SC integration allow managing product complexity while improving performance.     

Collaborative practices in new product development projects involving suppliers

Abstract

Collaboration with suppliers in New Product Development (NPD) is essential for business competitiveness. However, the management of such collaborative project needs to focus on interactions between team members from different companies since they performed inter-organizational activities. While the impact of collaboration with suppliers on NPD project performance has been widely studied, the investigation of practices to support daily collaborative activities between both teams has received limited attention. This paper aims at developing a framework of operational practices for successful inter-organizational collaboration in NPD. The practices enacted by both project teams in six case studies were examined according to the stages of the collaboration and a knowing perspective. The results revealed some peculiarities linked to the inter-organizational context. Practices interact with each other across stages with a specific dynamic. More particularly, early in the project, practices to justify the collaboration with the suppliers are determinant for practices related to the creation of social interactions between project members and project commitment. The results also show that boundary objects are useful formal socialization mechanisms for supporting the undertaking of collaborative work.     

Authorizing processes changing team autonomy during new product development

One basic feature of recent collaborative team arrangements for organizing new product development is a high degree of autonomy for cross-functional teams. The literature, however, has not provided a very precise analysis of team autonomy in the context of new product development. The theoretical framework advanced here, based on the literature and the authors' case studies, assumes that developing a large and technologically sophisticated new product requires a hierarchy of collaborating teams. In this complex organizational context, managers do not completely predetermine any one team's autonomy. During the course of a new product development program, certain authorizing (deauthorizing) processes produce ad hoc changes in autonomy. This paper identifies specific authorizing processes and hypothesizes about variables that should affect them. The propositions also lead to some managerial implications for preserving team autonomy.     

Pro-innovation culture,ambidexterity and new product development performance: Polynomial regression and response surface analysis

This study examines the intervening role of organizational ambidexterity in the relationship between pro-innovation culture and new product development (NPD) performance. The results indicate that organizational ambidexterity positively mediates the relationship between pro-innovation culture and NPD performance. The results show that when both exploration and exploitation are increased simultaneously, after an initial decline, NPD performance shows a rising trend. NPD performance tends to decline generally when there is an imbalance between the two though the plateau is at a point where exploitation is slightly higher than exploration. Additionally, pro-innovation culture can increase the gap between exploration and exploitation for exploration-oriented firms, which can lower their NPD performance. Overall, this study contributes to a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanisms that explain why firms with pro-innovation culture have higher NPD performance. Further, it enhances our understanding of the role of pro-innovation culture as an organizational context for building organizational ambidexterity, and provides new insights that can help reconcile the combined and balanced views of ambidexterity in enhancing NPD performance.     

New product development in turbulent environments: Impact of improvisation and unlearning on new product performance

Team learning is vital for organizations in order to compete in fast-paced environments. However, the ways learning can be effective in such environments warrents research, especially for teams developing new products under rapidly changing technological and market conditions. Interestingly, recent new product development (NPD) literature demonstrates the essential role of improvisation (i.e., planning and executing any action simultaneously) and unlearning (i.e., changes in team beliefs and project routines) for effective learning and performing under turbulent conditions. However, the combined effect of team improvisation and unlearning on new product success (NPS) has largely been ignored. This paper investigates the nomological relations among team improvisation and unlearning, new product success, and environmental turbulence, and contributes to the literature on NPD team learning, and on team flexibility under turbulent conditions. By examining 197 new product-development projects, we found that (1) environmental turbulence positively affects team unlearning, (2) team unlearning concurrently stimulates team improvisation, (3) team improvisation positively impacts new product success by utilizing/implementing new knowledge acquired by unlearning and improvisation. We further discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of our conclusions.     

Organization of new product development in Thailand' food processing industry

Asian food markets are large and growing very rapidly. Per capita food consumption is increasing as income rises, and food consumption habits are changing. Asian food retailing is also changing rapidly, as distribution and transportation modernizes. Consumers are becoming more sophisticated, with increasing awareness of hygiene and safety, and expectations of better nutrition and more convenience. This rapid development of food markets creates opportunities in food processing as great as in high tech industries (Selwin, 1992). It also puts pressure on food manufacturers to continuously upgrade their products and to offer new products. Management of research and development (R&D) is becoming critical to competitiveness.     

Critical success factors for cross-functional teamwork in new product development

There is consensus that the effective implementation of cross-functional teams is critical to new product success. However, such teams face particular challenges because of well-documented barriers between functions. Furthermore, there is little evidence-based guidance for practitioners on how to achieve effective cross-functional teamwork. In order to address this gap, the literature on cross-functional teamwork was analysed to identify critical success factors. Using a heuristic team effectiveness model, these were categorized into six groups: task design, group composition, organizational context, internal processes, external processes and group psychosocial traits. Recent theory on group effectiveness has increasingly recognized the significance of a supportive organizational context, and this is particularly pertinent for cross-functional teams. Key success factors include strategic alignment between functions, a climate supportive of teamwork and team-based accountability. The findings are integrated into a diagnostic model which is intended to be of practical benefit to people designing, leading and facilitating cross-functional new product development teams.     

Completing projects on-time: how project acceleration affects new product development

How do accelerated time goals affect the execution and completion of new product development (NPD) projects? This research addresses this question as it relates to project content, project leadership, and aspects of design integration. Research data were drawn from a survey of 131 completed NPD projects from firms representing a wide variety of manufacturing industries. The results of an analysis of both intentionally accelerated and normally-paced projects suggest that project acceleration interacts with project content, leadership, and integration variables to affect on-time performance differently across NPD project types, sometimes in surprising ways. Two primary effects are posited to explain these inconsistent effects. First, NPD acceleration tends to increase the difficulty of the project by introducing new procedures and by reducing schedule slack. These changes are thought to exacerbate project content factors and to raise the value of NPD leadership and integration techniques. At the same time, an intentional acceleration strategy is thought to signal increased priority for the project, causing development personnel to make more careful decisions, and to more effectively implement new technologies and techniques. The article discusses the implications of the findings for future research and practice.     

基于0-1半无限规划的新产品开发计划方法

开发新产品,加速产品更新换代,是企业持续经营和不断发展的重要手段.近年来随着CIMS技术的不断发展,生产管理集成化程度的提高,只对产品作定性的分析已远远不能满足企业发展的需要.本文提出一种新产品开发计划的定量分析方法.该方法将所有产品分为四种具有不同收益曲线与参数的产品类型.每种类型产品的曲线参数由其经济特性确定.在产品量化描述的基础上,给出了一种利用0-1半无限规划(0-1 SIP)制订新产品开发计划的数学模型方法.     

Task partitioning in new product development teams: A knowledge and learning perspective

R&D alliances and outsourcing elements of the new product development process are now commonplace practices among many firms. However, little previous work has examined how these organizational choices influence project knowledge and learning. Based on a comparison of three new product development projects in the software industry, this paper examines how task partitioning in the project influences learning and knowledge development within the firm. The paper suggests that internal development projects encourage synthetic learning and development of architectural and tacit knowledge; in contrast, outsourcing and joint ventures encourage analytic learning and development of component and explicit knowledge.     

Assessing the relationship between practice changes and process improvement in new product development

This paper reports the findings of a study into the process of new product development. Specifically, it challenges the limitations of the current research into the relationship between the adoption of new tools and techniques and performance improvements in new product development. The study was carried out on a sample of manufacturing firms. Cluster analysis yields a new classification of firms, which is shown to provide a significant explanation of the relationship between levels of tool and technique usage and managers’ perceptions of improvements in outcomes. The existing evaluation of tools and techniques is shown to be deficient in not considering adoption jointly rather than singly. The study shows the benefits of a high level of overall tool and technique usage for improving key competitive objectives in new product development, but with limitations. Significantly, project costs are not improved by a high use of tools and techniques. Improved assessment of tools and techniques should be employed to reduce the gap between the rhetoric and the reality of process improvement.     

The effect of new product development acceleration approaches on development speed: A case study

This study investigates the impact of nine new product development (NPD) acceleration approaches on development speed. Our findings from 233 manufacturing firms show that 5 approaches (supplier involvement, lead user involvement, speeding up activities and tasks, training and rewarding of employees, and simplification of organizational structure) increase development speed, whereas 2 approaches (implementing support systems and techniques and stimulating inter-functional coordination) decrease development speed. Two approaches (i.e., reduction of parts and components and emphasizing the customer) have no effect on development speed. Our results further show that firms developing different types of new products should use different NPD acceleration approaches, as the speed impact of six out of nine approaches is dependent upon the degree of product innovativeness.     

Equity alliances,stages of product development,and alliance instability

The purpose of this research is to analyze the stability of strategic alliances initiated at different stages of the new product development process and to determine the appropriateness of different governance structures (e.g., joint ventures, minority equity alliances, non-equity alliances). Specifically, we argue that the minority equity form of alliance is an inherently unstable structure for product development partnerships. Key findings of this study are: (a) minority equity alliances are more likely to be terminated within 5 years than joint ventures and non-equity alliances, (b) alliances are more likely to be terminated if they are initiated in the early and late stages of product development and less likely to be terminated if they are initiated in the mid-stages of product development, and (c) alliances are more likely to become acquisitions if they are initiated in the mid-stages of product development and less likely to become acquisitions if they are initiated in the early and late stages of product development.     

Breadth of external knowledge sourcing and product innovation: The moderating role of strategic human resource practices

Prior research has argued that external knowledge sourcing can be supported by effective strategic human resource (HR) practices. However, whether and how the adoption of new organizational mechanisms in group settings influences the relationship between external search strategies and innovation performance represents an unanswered question. Therefore, the present paper aims to explore the relationship between the breadth of external knowledge sourcing (i.e., external search breadth) and product innovation by unveiling the moderating effects of strategic HR practices, as represented by the implementation of heterogeneous work groups and brainstorming sessions. On the basis of data from the Italian Innovation Survey, our results reveal that external search breadth is curvilinearly (inverted U) related to product innovation, and its negative effects occur later in the presence of heterogeneous work groups and brainstorming sessions.     

Towards an integrative framework of innovation network for new product development project

The increasing complexity of product and radical changing environment lead companies towards innovation network (IN) collaboration. Although recent researches highlight the importance and benefits of innovation network (IN) to new product development (NPD), this subject is still developing and it has the potential to expand into new dimensions. However, there is a significant lack in the literature regarding holistic, systematic and integrated framework when it comes to manipulating the challenge of true NPD projects. The current researches mainly focus on the strategy level which provides less application guidance for NPD. Thus, in this work, the authors propose an integrative framework of innovation network for NPD based on the literature review. In addition, a case study of new refrigerator development reveals the feasibility and potentials of the overall framework to its broad usage in industry.