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Literature on the role of observational or vicarious learning is extensive, but little research has focused on learning for entrepreneurs in a demanding, competitive context. This article investigates how different competent models influence the innovation behavior of entrepreneurs in the context of haute cuisine. Further, we evaluate how much these innovative choices influence the performance of the restaurants. A total of 55 gourmet restaurant chefs were sampled using two Gourmet Magazine rankings of the top 50 US restaurants. Multiple sources of archival data were coded: chefs' profiles for the observation of competent models; press articles for innovation (as novelty, product, process and service innovation); and the restaurant's position in the Gourmet ranking for performance. This paper makes two unique contributions: (1) Entrepreneurs learn to innovate vicariously through observing competent models (parents and mentors but not academic models); and (2) Innovation mediates the relationship between the observation of models and the performance.

Automotive assemblers and suppliers have employed a number of different strategies to deal with external uncertainty. These strategies have evolved relatively rapidly of late in part because of changes in the locus of innovation from OEMs to suppliers, changing market conditions, and the future regulations of greenhouse gases. This presents a unique challenge for the industry. Some auto firms have been more effective in dealing with market and regulatory uncertainty due to technology resource integration across platforms and integration between functions on the value added chain from suppliers to retailers.

Most professionals, actively engaged in design, live in a world of trade-offs. The most typical compromise is that reducing the cost of design causes quality to suffer, but there are many others as well. This paper summarizes current use of one of the most popular approaches to improving the new offering development process: design reuse. In the present study 42 companies were surveyed, of which 23 were in manufacturing and 19 were in services—but all were actively engaged in technology and design reuse in new offerings. It was hypothesized that policies for design reuse and internal sourcing would promote the complexity and breadth of reuse (here the combination of modular and architectural substitution), which, in turn would dampen the percentage of substitution and reduce the negative impact on innovativeness of new offerings. These predictions were generally supported. Adoption of policies for encouragement or to mandate design reuse were significantly correlated with the extent of reuse (application of both architectural and modular design vs. just one or the other) among manufacturers but not services firms in the sample. Internal sourcing of ideas for design reuse was significantly correlated with extent of reuse for the total sample, and especially for services. Design reuse percentage and extent of design reuse were significantly and inversely associated for manufacturing, as predicted, but not for services. Novelty of new offerings was significantly and inversely related to percentage of reuse, as predicted, for manufacturing, but not for services. It was found that sector also makes a difference in likelihood of adopting higher levels of reuse with service company respondents reporting significantly higher levels (average of 42% reuse for services and 28% for manufacturing applications). Perhaps one of the most interesting preliminary findings to emerge was that the tipping point of negative impact from design reuse percentage on innovativeness for all firms in the sample of new offerings was 43%, beyond which novelty suffers. For manufacturing, the tipping point was lower: Novelty begins to suffer after 33% design reuse, which has important management implications. The conclusion was drawn, based on these preliminary results, that much can be done to relieve some of the negative consequences of the typical trade-offs commonly encountered in development programs for new offerings, especially when cost, timing, and innovation are the target goals. However, services and manufacturing are quite different in their approach to design reuse and substitution. Further development of the concept of design reuse strategy appears to be warranted based on these preliminary findings. The findings raise the distinct possibility that mesolevel strategic aggregation issues might lead research into areas that help explain how complex systems realize their full self-organizing potential and why corporate strategy considerations, alone, have failed to explain the success and failure of organizations coping in rugged landscapes.

Empirical generalization continues to be a challenge in most applied fields that favor publication of original results. The purpose of this study was to report on a new product development exercise in one, controlled cultural setting, which replicates and extends Ettlie (2002). Results from four recent graduate business classes in Portugal show that the background of students—technical versus other or mixed—is a nearly perfect predictor of the average or central estimates the class makes tendency (median) of new product success in the exercise. Country matters little. These results have now persisted over nearly seven years, and implications are discussed concerning theory, practice, and future research.

The purpose of this research was to explore the nature of the Stage-Gate®process in the context of innovative projects that not only vary in new product technology (i.e., radical versus incremental technology) but that also involve significant new product development technology (i.e., new virtual teaming hardware-software systems). Results indicate that firms modify their formal development regimes to improve the efficiency of this process while not significantly sacrificing product novelty (i.e., the degree to which new technology is incorporated in the new offering). Four hypotheses were developed and probed using 72 automotive engineering managers involved in supervision of the new product development process. There was substantial evidence to creatively replicate results from previous benchmarking studies; for example, 48.6% of respondents say their companies used a traditional Stage-Gate®process, and 60% of these new products were considered to be a commercial success. About a third of respondents said their companies are now using a modified Stage-Gate®process for new product development. Auto companies that have modified their Stage-Gate®procedures are also significantly more likely to report (1) use of virtual teams; (2) adoption of collaborative and virtual new product development software supporting tools; (3) having formalized strategies in place specifically to guide the new product development process; and (4) having adopted structured processes used to guide the new product development process. It was found that the most significant difference in use of phases or gates in the new product development process with radical new technology occurs when informal and formal phasing processes are compared, with normal Stage-Gate®usage scoring highest for technology departures in new products. Modified Stage-Gate®had a significant, indirect impact on organizational effectiveness. These findings, taken together, suggest companies optimize trade-offs between cost and quality after they graduate from more typical stage-process management to modified regimes. Implications for future research and management of this challenging process are discussed. In general, it was found that the long-standing goal of 50% reduction in product development time without sacrificing other development goals (e.g., quality, novelty) is finally within practical reach of many firms. Innovative firms are not just those with new products but also those that can modify their formal development process to accelerate change.

Hypotheses were developed to capture the dynamic capabilities that result from interfirm partnerships during the joint new product development (NPD) process—the ability to build, integrate, and reconfigure existing resources to adapt to rapidly changing environments. These capabilities, in turn, were proposed to have a positive impact on NPD performance outcomes: (a) proportion of new product success and (b) superior new product commercialization. In contexts where the locus of innovation is rapidly changing, the impact of interfirm NPD dynamic capabilities was hypothesized to be diminished in high-technology contexts, especially for buyers (original equipment manufacturers) and to a lesser extent for suppliers. Still, technology-based interfirm NPD partnerships were predicted to ultimately outperform low-technology ones in both NPD performance outcomes. Finally, information technology (IT) support for NPD was hypothesized to influence the interfirm NPD partnership's dynamic capabilities. Using survey data from 72 auto company managers and their suppliers, the proposed model in which IT support for NPD influences the success of interfirm NPD partnerships through the mediating role of interfirm NPD partnership dynamic capabilities in high- and low-technology contexts was generally supported. The results shed light on the nature of technology-based interfirm NPD partnerships and have implications for their success. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

PurposeThe delivered wisdom to date has enterprise system purchase and implementation as one of the most hazardous projects any organization can undertake. The aim was to reduce this risk by both theoretically and empirically finding those key predictors of a successful enterprise system deployment.Design/methodology/approachA representative sample of 60 firms drawn from the Fortune 1000 that had recently (1999‐2000) adopted enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems was used to test a model of adoption performance with significant results.FindingsLeadership (social learning theory), business process re‐engineering (change the company not the technology) and acquisition strategy (buy, do not make) were found to be significant predictors of adoption performance (final model R2=43 percent, F=5.5, ppOriginality/valueThe “four factor” model we validate is a robust predictor of ERP adoption success and can be used by any organization to audit plans and progress for this undertaking.

There has been a considerable amount of effort and writing devoted to improving the new product development process during the last two decades. Although there have been some surprises in this literature and in reports from the field on how to manage this complex business process, we now have a good view of the state-of-the-art practices that work and do not work to accelerate commercial success of new ventures. We know much less about how firms change their strategies for new product development. In this article, we report on a study to investigate how companies change the way they originate and develop new products in manufacturing. We made no prior assumptions about what best practices might be for changing the direction of the new product development process, but we reasonably were sure there would be trends in how companies were attempting to create this strategic change. Even though one size does not fit all, there were significant trends in our findings. We studied eight manufacturing firms using in-depth, open-ended interviews and were surprised to find that most of these companies are beginning to develop products that are new to the firm, industry, and the world (nearly half, or 10 of 21 new product projects), where they had not been eager for radical change in the past. These newer products likely are to be driven by a combination of market and technology forces, with general requirements being directed by internal forces: middle and top management. Results also indicate significantly that being able to marshal resources and capabilities is easier if change is less demanding and less radical, but when middle managers are driving the conversion of general requirements into specifications, resource issues have yet to be resolved. Implications of these findings are discussed for companies aspiring to change the entire process of new product development in their firms based on these significant results.

A representative sample of 60 firms drawn from the Fortune 1000 that had recently adopted Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems were used to test a model of weak appropriation with significant results. Leadership (social learning theory), business process reengineering (change the company not the technology) and acquisition strategy (buy, don't make), controlling for EDI (electronic data interchange), when the project was begun, industry (manufacturing versus service) and scale (sales) and were found to be significant predictors of adoption performance (final model R-square=43%, F=5.5, p

Do integrated approaches to design promote the commercial success of new products? Data from 126 U.S. manufacturers were used to test five hypotheses in a structural model of integrated design approaches which go beyond concurrent engineering. New product success was significantly associated with market need understanding which incorporates information, significantly, from integrated design into new product development. Integrated design was found to be significantly associated with early-mover strategy, benchmarking best practices and, to a lesser extent, customized or proprietary hardware-software systems.

In a comparative study of 208 US and 109 Swedish durable goods firms, and their practices for promoting design-manufacturing integration, greatest convergence was found for the adoption of manufacturing sign-off of product plans. Sign-off was also the most widespread practice, currently being used by about 75% of all companies in both countries. The US and Swedish firms were also similar, but not identical, in their promotion of mobility among engineers across functions. Permanent moves occur in about half these firms in both countries, but the details, such as which positions are involved, were not available. New structures to promote design-manufacturing integration mere adopted by about 60-65% of all Swedish firms and the larger US companies (1991), but 46% for small US firms (1993). Both countries report the widespread use of teams. There appears to be considerable difference between the two countries in adoption of design training. In 1992 the Swedish adoption rate of DFM (Design for Manufacturing) training was about 20% which is nearly the same as the US large firm adoption rate of 18% in 1987. The larger firm US adoption rate was nearly 56% in 1991 (41% for smaller firms in 1993) but institutional factors such as engineering education have not been controlled. The widest divergence between Swedish and US policies and practices for design-manufacturing integration concerns job rotation. Correlation results indicate convergence of adoption practices in the area of DFM training and manufacturing sign-off for Sweden and the US. >

Organizations vary greatly in their approaches and success in the introduction of new products and services. In this study, it was proposed that much of this variance can be captured by understanding the extend to which product design and process design are integrated in new program launches. A mailed survey of 43 domestic firms was used to test four propositions concerning product-process development practices. Significantly, it was found that firms using the more rare design-manufacturing personnel integrating mechanisms (engineering job rotation and mobility) have higher sales per employee. Results of a discriminant analysis show that firms benchmarking on product development practices, as contrasted with performance benchmarks, were significantly more likely to use both the rare and the more common forms of design-manufacturing integration (i.e., train personnel in new design, methods, have manufacturing sign-off on design reviews, and restructure, e.g., use teams). Significantly, these firms also report a greater proportion of degreed manufacturing engineers. Not surprisingly, larger firms and business units were found to take longer to develop new products.

In this essay we summarize the state-of-the art of innovation studies shadowed by the daunting challenges this eclectic subject domain incurs as a result of discipline silo structures in most universities. Indeed, developments in technology and other external forces like competition and regulatory changes have pushed organizations towards development and adoption of new approaches particularly salient in Operations Management (OM). We show, however, that in the academic community, these discipline-based efforts have created an impediment to development of a strategic theory of innovation processes. We conclude with an upbeat and optimistic appraisal of possible ways forward and suggest a process to accelerate theory-building that might deal with the growing feeling among many scholars that many academic journals are becoming irrelevant. Examples from the current literature and reflections on the past 40 years of research in the field are liberally sampled. Although our essay views innovation through a bro...

The study explores the tradeoff between efforts to benchmark on product-development practices and be customer focused in the implementation of a quality-improvement method. The results of a survey of thirty-three firms' experience with quality function deployment (QFD) reveal that benchmarking on how competitors, peers, or role models develop products facilitates process improvement but hinders customer focus. Smaller firms are also shown to gain more customer focus and process-improvement benefits from QFD than larger firms.

This study represents the confluence of two research streams under the organizational change rubric: linear/nonlinear thinking style-that is the notion that people tend to be either linear, nonlinear or balanced thinkers-and innovative intentions and resulting behaviors in organizations. It was hypothesized that a balanced linear/nonlinear thinking style and the inclination towards more innovative intentions and resulting behaviors in organizations are strongly related. The results of an analysis of four French and American business course student populations (n = 73) found a significant relationship in the predicted direction between balanced linear/nonlinear thinking style and innovative intention measures. A second wave of data collection involved six sections of graduate project management classes with a majority of engineering students. The results of the combined sample (n=124) mirrored the first wave results. Balanced thinking style and occupation-free measures of innovative intentions were significantly related. Important implications of the results are discussed for cross-functional innovative teams and directions for future work.

We performed a two-year case study on the ramp-up of a large flexible assembly system in a Midwestern automotive components plant. The new system was designed to be a creative replication of technology already in operation in the technology supplier's firm and was purchased under a broad corporate alliance agreement as well as a detailed adoption contract. Although the project met its installation schedule, production targets, and direct labor cost savings objectives, the installation of this innovative, partially-tended assembly system raised several issues and questions regarding the optimal part mix schedule, quality standards, and maintenance schedules. We hypothesize that a curvilinear relationship exists between supplier-user satisfaction and flexibility outcomes. Moderate levels of satisfaction appear to maximize the ratio of part families per hour change-over capability of a new flexible system.

In this study we compare product development strategies and practices of five companies in the durable goods industries: one each in the United States (equipment), Sweden aerospace), Germany (electric motors), Hungary (transportation equipment), and Japan (business machines, cameras/video). In particular, we focus on the concept development phase of new product development and the attend to the aspects of the design process that may be influenced by culture. To the extent that the five cases are representative of their home countries, there appears to be ample variance across cultures to justify further, more extensive research in this arena. A model is presented which differentiates the amount of cultural influence by stage of the product development process in high technology versus low technology industries.

In their chapter, Mumford, Bedell-Avers, and Hunter (this volume) confront the nontrivial issue of whether creativity and innovation can be planned, and proceed to support an affirmative answer with a well-organized treatment of the applied research literature relevant to this topic. They outline and reference an incremental approach to this planning process at multiple levels of analysis (organization, group, and individual), and present both a state-of-the-art review and a general, normative approach to this daunting challenge. In reviewing this chapter, this commentary addresses what is worthwhile and important in their presentation that students of this field should find noteworthy. Next, it takes up the issue of what is underdeveloped or missing that would fit nicely into Mumford et al.'s framework, or might provide food for thought to those wanting to go forward with research on the topic of planning for innovation. Finally, it presents conclusions about this topic and the field in general that were stimulated by Mumford et al.'s chapter, including the role of information technology and knowledge management for innovation planning.

Preliminary empirical findings and case histories are presented that strongly suggest art emerging maiority of domestic manufacturing firms adopting significant administrative innovations to accommodate the deployment of advanced manufacturing innovations like flexible manufacturing and assembly systems. A typology of these administrative innovations is suggested by these preliminary findings and other evidence that has been published on the management of computer integrated manufacturing.

There continues to be an increase in the amount of RD and a sample of 126 R&D performing firms with new product introduction (1992-93). In the first survey, it was found that only 4 (9%) of 43 companies reported any type of early manufacturing involvement in new product development projects-that is, involvement in the concept development stage. In the second survey, it was found that the number of new ideas sourced in manufacturing was also quite small (3%). Therefore, a causal model was constructed using measures other than idea sourcing (i.e., early manufacturing involvement, EMI, in concept development and idea generation) and it was found that EMI was significantly related to reduction in design change requests which, in turn, significantly promotes return-on-investment (ROI) of these new products.

The purpose of this symposium is to bring scholars together to discuss potential tensions between value creation and value capture in the context of open innovation. While value creation generally ...

The U.S. economy generally, and manufacturing in particular, are nearing the end of a decade of nearly unprecedented growth and high performance. Manufacturing productivity grew by a rate of 4.4% in 19962 and 1998 industrial output is expected to be about 3% above 1997 levels.3 Durable goods manufacturing, in particular, has been very strong, with increased output of 9.5% in 19974. The stock market is up 150% in the last four years.5

The open innovation paradigm places renewed emphasis on the boundary spanning role for technical organizations. Previous research shows that heterogeneous groups are superior to homogeneous groups for creative responses to uncertainty. For boundary spanners in engineering projects it is proposed that weak, external links are a source of the information needed to deal with task uncertainty. Weak links are used as a metric of differences in the technical advice received from outside the R&D groups. Data support the proposition that for high performing project groups, weak external technical advice links compensate for a lack of internal group heterogeneity.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report on nine in‐depth case histories of manufacturing firms introducing significant new service innovations. Manufacturing firms are under increasing pressure to diversify into lines of business that offer unique contributions to long term profitability and this paper increases understanding of how incumbent firms successfully accomplish this transition.Design/methodology/approach – Using analytical induction the authors sample published announcements of significant new service offerings by well‐established manufacturing firms. An example of this type of service innovation would be General Motor's offering of OnStar remote driver support systems (not included in this sample). A total of nine cases (43 percent of the companies contacted) participated in this case study approach.Findings – The paper identifies two primary strategies pursued by these firms development and launch of significant new service innovations representing important diversification moves for...

In this study we predicted and found evidence to support two general themes about new production systems measurement. First, there are two tiers of measures that are becoming popular to gauge performance. These two tiers are relatively independent-system-level measures like uptime, and business-level outcomes like return on investment. Second, when measures from these two categories are significantly correlated, they are likely to be for the time or flexibility measures at the system level. The rationale for this thesis is that modernization programs implement the leading edge of manufacturing strategies, and time or flexibility are replacing quality as priorities in leading-edge domestic manufacturing.

Although performance gaps have long been assumed to stimulate innovative organizations, the theory has rarely been tested. In a secondary data analysis of 147 food processing firms, it was found that performance gaps are significantly correlated with objective measures of environmental uncertainty but not with innovation among firms in this sample. It was hypothesized that since performance gaps might impinge upon the availability of slack resources to the firm, small firms would be discouraged from innovating after experiencing a performance gap and large firms would be encouraged to innovate in response to a performance gap. Modest support for this proposition was obtained. Three other propositions were strongly supported by these data. Perceived rather than objective measures of environmental uncertainty are significantly correlated with radical innovation in firms that have successfully avoided severe performance gaps, most probably because they are significantly more likely to have formulated and implemented an aggressive technology policy. It appears that environmental change and turbulence that cause performance gaps can promote innovation for an organization if they can be anticipated, but will discourage especially radical innovation once they have led to a severe performance gap.

A review of the literature and of several cases of modernization in domestic plants reveals the significance of the challenge of integrating design and manufacturing. Teams, compatible computer-aided-design (CAD) systems, common reporting positions, design for manufacture (DFM) programs, and engineering generalists emerge as the primary mechanisms being used to coordinate the design process when more than one function is involved. Management needs greater involvement of engineers in design-manufacturing integration.

Professor Albert H. Rubenstein has been Editor of the ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT TRANSACTIONS OF THE IRE and starting in 1963, the IEEE since 1958. In 1983 when I was President of the Engineering Management Society (EMS), Al informed me that 25 years as editor was sufficient, and that we should start the search for his successor. With his guidance we completed that search in 1984. He will officially retire as editor at the end of 1985.

Two dimensions (personal-impersonal and internal-external) are used to characterize information sources as they become important during the interorganizational transfer of production innovations. The results of three studies are reviewed for the purpose of deriving a model of the timing and importance of different information sources and the utilization of new technology. Based on the findings of two retrospective studies, it was concluded that the pattern of information seeking behavior in user organizations during the awareness stage od adoption is not a reliable predictor of the eventual utilization rate. Using the additional findings of a real-time study, an empirical model of the relative importance of information sources for successful user organizations is presented. These results are extended and integrated into a theoretical model consisting of a time-profile of successful implementations and the relative importance of four types of information sources during seven stages of the adoption-implementation process.

The purpose of this study was to test a model of the organizational innovation process that suggests that the strategy-structure causal sequence is differentiated by radical versus incremental innovation. That is, unique strategy and structure will be required for radical innovation, especially process adoption, while more traditional strategy and structure arrangements tend to support new product introduction and incremental process adoption. This differentiated theory is strongly supported by data from the food processing industry. Specifically, radical process and packaging adoption are significantly promoted by an aggressive technology policy and the concentration of technical specialists. Incremental process adoption and new product introduction tends to be promoted in large, complex, decentralized organizations that have market dominated growth strategies. Findings also suggest that more traditional structural arrangements might be used for radical change initiation if the general tendencies that occur in these dimensions as a result of increasing size can be delayed, briefly modified, or if the organization can be partitioned structurally for radical vs. incremental innovation. In particular, centralization of decision making appears to be necessary for radical process adoption along with the movement away from complexity toward more organizational generalists. This suggests that a greater support of top managers in the innovation process is necessary to initiate and sustain radical departures from the past for that organization.

In this study three, two-part propositions were developed based on a general model of how organizational variables moderate the influence of individual change values on innovative intentions and how these same organizational factors moderate the impact of individual innovative intentions on organizational innovative outcomes. A total of 66 respondents, mostly top managers in food processing and food equipment and packaging firms, returned questionnaires. Results indicated that the absence of technical specialist concentration significantly (p

A model of the causes and impacts of manpower flows in the innovation process is developed in this paper. A review of some of the relevant literature and discussion of several case studies of manpower flows are presented. Some preliminary results are reported and emergent propositions and future research needs are discussed. One promising area of exploration appears to be the relationship between information flows, manpower flows, and importance of the innovation (radical vs. incremental) under consideration. Some implications for the management of technological change in organizations are discussed.

This paper reports on an exploratory study of the barriers and facilitators that affect technological innovation by suppliers to the automotive industry and the adoption of such innovations by the industry. The specific focus in the study was on key decision and action points in the life of specific innovations or potential innovations (ideas for new products) which may affect their successful development and marketing. The major source of data for this study was in the form of brief cases obtained from interviews of managers and technical personnel in suppliers to the automotive industry. These cases related to specific projects engaged in or ideas proposed by the responding firms or others in their sector of the industry which were aimed at the introduction of new or improved products, components, systems, materials, designs, etc., to the automotive industry. The information and data for this study were collected by means of structured interviews with 15 managers in 13 first level supplier firms to the automotive industry. A total of 32 innovations were investigated and a corresponding number of 32 cases and additional information on barriers and facilitators were generated for these 32 innovations. In general it was found that the most important barriers and facilitators to innovating were federal laws and regulations. Overall, the two types of decisions that are made in the automotive supplier's environment which appear consistently throughout these cases are (1) the automotive customer's decision to accept, encourage development of, or adopt innovations, and (2) the government's decision to mandate changes in safety, environment or energy-relatedregulations or legislation. The policy implications of the results of this study are discussed as they relate to an evolving model of the effects of potential federal intervention in the R&D/innovation process.

This is a report of a study of barriers, facilitators, and incentives to innovation among suppliers to the U.S. automotive industry. It follows and is integrated with two earlier studies on this subject by one or both of the present authors. One gathered data on a sample of innovations from a number of suppliers to identify the kinds of barriers and facilitators they encountered in their attempts to innovate for the automotive industry. The second focused on possible incentives for research aimed at increasing and improving the technology base for the automotive industry. The current study combined both aspects and probed, in more depth than was possible in the first set of case studies, the possibility of government incentives helping to ease or eliminate barriers to innovation at the project level. Twenty-eight innovation project cases were examined in three large automobile supplier companies. Data were gathered by a combination of face-to-face interviews, telephone interviews, and one mailed questionnaire. The barriers mentioned most frequently in connection with this sample of projects were 1) problems in selling and developing products for automotive market, 2) government actions, 3) cost (e.g., development, capital), 4) high-volume product requirements, and 5) general historical trends (e.g., resistance to change). On the other hand, respondents mentioned the following facilitators most frequently as stimulating innovation to the auto industry: 1) the nature of the automotive market and the customer, 2) the capabilities of the supplier and recent trends in the supplier's environment, 3) government actions, and 4) competition. Respondents' suggestions of a number of potential government actions were combined and analyzed with the results of the two earlier studies, and five general classes of incentives were selected as possible experimental variables in a proposed set of administrative experiments to be conducted among suppliers to the automotive industry. The five experimental or independent variables (incentives) were 1) cooperative research, 2) research grants and contracts, 3) technical information, 4) cost sharing, and 5) demonstrations. In addition, a large set of behavioral or decision events, derived from the first study in this series, was presented and candidates for dependent or outcome (performance) variables to be measured for specific experiments were discussed.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the combined roles via trust relationships of the two technology cores of the firm: information technology (IT) and R&D and their impact on new product success. Design/methodology/approach A model was tested whereby trust and the integrated IT strategy account for a significant amount of the variance in a broad range of new product development (NPD) outcomes for a survey sample of 223 manufacturing firms. Respondents said design practices and quality methods like Six Sigma accounted for a total of over 25 percent of the reports of the most helpful approaches in promoting effective NPD. At the same time their biggest challenges were having a clear strategic direction within which to operate and resolving cost and resource issues which accounted for over a third (34 percent) of barriers to success. Findings Respondents reported that a total of over 25 percent of the reports of the most helpful approaches in promoting effective included these quality methods. At the same time their biggest challenges were having a clear strategic direction within which to operate and resolving cost and resource issues which accounted for over a third (34 percent) of barriers to success. High-tech firms were less likely to report integrated IT strategies, but this tended to be counterbalanced by high levels of trust in the IT function and adoption of organizational innovations for execution of strategic intent. Implications for future research and practice are discussed. Research limitations/implications Survey methods produce broad results with low response rates in most studies involving R&D and NPD, and this study is no exception. Practical implications With the challenge of strategy alignment reported by many of these firms, it seems clear that the top management team cannot afford to leave NPD challenges to engineering teams and NPD programs without guidance and general vision. Social implications NPD has become the staple of most manufacturing firms as a way of meeting and beating the competition worldwide. However, trust between functional areas often starts before people are even employed and should begin in training and educational programs. Originality/value Designing NPD programs is at the heart of many firms’ competitive strategies and the fast learning companies are the winners. Very little is known about the trust relationship between IT and R&D and their combined effects on new product success which we have found to be significant and unexpected in their impacts.

In this article the author discusses how to effectively conduct real-time field studies. He points out that these studies offer the benefit of clarifying the process of change and increasing the confidence of causal models. He discusses the practical aspects of designing and implementing real-time field studies in organizational settings. While noting that all research methods have their drawbacks, he adds that those associated with real-time field studies can be minimized by proper planning and implementation. Some of the major concerns in designing these studies are choosing the variables to be examined and most importantly, choosing the length of time between observations as well as the total amount of observations to be made.