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Innovation scholars have long touted the value of cross-functional teams, and though firms have embraced a cross-functional design in their new product development (NPD) teams, these teams continue to face challenges. Stability in an NPD team may offer important advantages for decision making; however, its effectiveness as a structural coordination mechanism remains largely unexplored. Therefore, to offer insight into the value of NPD team stability, the authors develop a process-based model that examines the extent to which stability influences certain decision-making processes, which in turn influence new product advantage. They examine these relationships with a sample of cross-functional NPD project teams from 208 high-technology firms. The results reveal that the degree of stability in an NPD project team has a curvilinear relationship to team-level debate and decision-making comprehensiveness. In turn, whereas debate is positively related to decision comprehensiveness, decision comprehensiveness is positively related to new product advantage only at high levels. These curvilinear patterns shed light on anecdotal evidence that currently attributes success to both stable and unstable project teams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors examine the differential effects of the structural, relational, and cognitive dimensions of social capital on exploratory and exploitative learning in new product development in new ventures in China. In addition to investigating the potential nonlinear relationships between exploratory and exploitative learning and new product performance, the authors examine the relationship between the interaction of the two types of learning and new product performance. The findings suggest that different dimensions of social capital are indeed significantly related to the level of exploratory and exploitative learning. The results also support the argument that firms need a balance of exploratory and exploitative learning to enhance performance. The findings draw the attention of managers from multinational firms operating in China to the important role of social capital in enhancing new product performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With a sample of new technology ventures in China, we investigated the contingent effect of strategic decision comprehensiveness on new product performance and product quality. The relationship between strategic decision comprehensiveness and new product performance was negatively moderated by technology uncertainty but positively moderated by demand uncertainty. The effect of decision comprehensiveness on new product quality was positively moderated by demand uncertainty but unaffected by technology uncertainty. The comprehensiveness-performance link emerges as more complex than previous research has shown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data from high-technology firms in Hong Kong were used to investigate whether the outcomes of problem-solving processes (solutions found, problem-solving speed, and solution quality) mediated the effects of centrifugal forces (decentralization, free flow of information, and reach) and centripetal forces (connectedness, temporal pacing, project leader expertise, and superordinate goal) on product development performance (development speed and product quality). Centrifugal and centripetal forces were indirectly related to performance through problem-solving outcomes, although some direct effects of these forces were also found. The results suggest a more complex model of product development than previously envisaged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a strong normative bias toward the inherent value of trust among both marketing researchers and practitioners. Yet there is little empirical evidence of a positive impact of trust on performance. Indeed, scholars suggest that the sources of trust may provide opportunities for its abuse. Following this line of thinking, the authors investigate the dual roles of sales controls and supervisor behaviors as antecedents of salespeople's belief in the benevolence of the supervisor (i.e., supervisee trust). The authors then examine these antecedents as moderators of the relationship between supervisee trust and sales performance in the context of selling new products. Data on field salespeople from high-technology firms in China and the United States suggest that factors such as supervisor accessibility engender supervisee trust but do not necessarily enhance its impact on sales performance. In the Chinese sample, supervisee trust enhances sales performance when output control is adopted, when the supervisor has a higher level of achievement orientation style, and when the salesperson has higher role ambiguity. Furthermore, the results suggest that the supervisee trust-sales performance relationship is negative when supervisor accessibility is high. With the exception of achievement orientation and supervisor accessibility, these effects are negative or nonexistent in the U.S. sample. The authors discuss theoretical and practical implications of the study's findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigating the effect of product innovation strategy on the performance of new technology ventures in China, we found the innovation-performance link was contingent on both environmental factors, including environmental turbulence and institutional support, and the relationship-based strategies of the ventures, such as strategic alliances for product development and political networking. Our results suggest the need for simultaneous consideration of environment- and relationship-based strategy factors as moderators in the discourse on product innovation strategy among new technology ventures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the role of marketing in the new product development process from a sociopolitical influence perspective. It makes an explicit distinction between the participation and influence of marketing and empirically investigates their differential effects on new product performance. The results, based on data collected from 114 high-technology firms in China, suggest that marketing's influence is related positively to new product market performance and timeliness of development. They also support the argument that the positive effect of marketing's participation on new product performance is mediated completely by its influence. Furthermore, the study reveals that the effectiveness of marketing's influence on new product performance depends on product newness to the firm, project formalization, perceived power of marketing, and the strength of the influence attempt. Managerial and research implications of the findings are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the unique role of new product factors in the firm's propensity to export and its performance in exporting new products. Results from a sample of Australian firms show that product advantage, proficiency of predevelopment activities, and international orientation of the development process have significant positive influence on the firm's propensity to export new products. Further, the new product's domestic market performance and its impact on the sales and profitability of other products of the firm are significantly related to its export performance. A noteworthy finding is that firm factors overwhelm new product factors in explaining export performance of new products. Managerial implications of the findings are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problem solving, a process of seeking, defining, evaluating, and implementing the solutions, is considered a converter that can translate organizational inputs into valuable product and service outputs. A key challenge for the product innovation community is to answer questions about how knowledge competence and problem-solving competence develop and sustain competitive advantage. The objective of this study is to theoretically examine and empirically test an existing assumption that problem-solving competence is an important variable connecting market knowledge competence with new product performance. New product projects from 396 firms in the high-technology zones in China were used to test the study's theoretical model. The results first indicate that problem-solving speed and creativity matter in new product innovation performance by playing mediator roles between market knowledge competence and positional advantage, which in turn sustains superior performance. This new insight suggest that mere generation of market knowledge and having a marketing-research and development (R&D) interface will not affect new product performance unless project members have the ability to use the information and to interact to identify and solve complex problems speedily and creatively. Second, these results suggest that different market knowledge competences (customers, competitors, and interactions between marketing and R&D) have distinct impacts on problem-solving speed and creativity (positive, negative, or none), which underscore the need to embrace a more fine-grained notion of market knowledge competence. The results also reveal that the relative importance of some of these relationships depends on the perceived level of turbulence in the environment. First, competitor knowledge competence decreases problem-solving speed when perceived environmental turbulence is low but enhances problem-solving speed when perceived turbulence is high. Second, competitor knowledge competence has a positive relationship with new product performance when the environmental turbulence is high but no relationship when the environmental turbulence is low. Third, the positive relationship between problem-solving speed and product advantage is stronger when the perceived environmental turbulence is high than when it is low, which implies that problem solving is more important for creating product advantage when environmental turbulence is high and change is fast and unpredictable. Fourth, the negative relationship between problem-solving speed and new product performance is stronger when the perceived environmental turbulence is high than when it is low, which means that problem-solving speed is more harmful for new product performance when change is fast and unpredictable. And fifth, the positive relationship between product quality and new product performance is stronger when perceived environmental turbulence is low than when it is high, which implies that product quality may more likely lead to new product performance when the environment is stable and changes are easy to predict, analyze, and comprehend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the need for research on the market-learning efforts of a firm in relation to its new product development is continuously emphasized, the empirical results on this issue reported so far have been mixed. The current study contends that the inconclusive nature of the empirical evidence is mostly due to the existence of different dimensions of organizational market learning—exploratory and exploitative—and to possible different routes by which these learning dimensions are linked to new product performance. More specifically, this study argues that exploratory market learning contributes to the differentiation of the new product because it involves the firm's learning about uncertain and new opportunities through the acquisition of knowledge distant from existing organizational skills and experiences. By contrast, this study posits that exploitative market learning enhances cost efficiency in developing new products as it aims to best use the currently available market information that is closely related to existing organizational experience. This study provides empirical support for this two-dimensional scheme of organizational market learning and its consequent effects on two components of new product advantage: new product differentiation and cost efficiency. Further, given that the effectiveness of firms' strategic efforts is contingent upon the nature of the market environment, the current study examines the moderating effects of environmental dynamism and market competitiveness for this market learning—new product advantage relationship. This study is based on survey data from 157 manufacturing firms in China that encompass various industries. The empirical findings support the two-dimensional market learning efforts that increase new product differentiation and cost efficiency, respectively. The study confirms that exploratory market learning becomes more effective under a turbulent market environment and that exploitative market learning is more contributive when competitive intensity is high. It also suggests that because of their differential direct and moderating effects on new product advantage either exploratory or exploitative market learning may not be used exclusively, but the two should be implemented in parallel. Such learning implementations will help to secure both the feature and cost-based new product advantage components and will consequently lead to the new product success. The current study attempts to contribute to greater clarity and better understanding of how market learning influences new product success as it theoretically identifies and empirically validates the two forms of new product advantage as the conceptual mediator between market learning and new product performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the benefits of being market oriented are largely accepted, a group of scholars and managers remain skeptical. Marketing scholars have sought to counter the criticisms leveled against market orientation (MO) by arguing that it has both responsive and proactive dimensions. However, few studies have empirically examined the complexity of the effects of these dimensions on firm performance. Drawing on theories of resource-based advantage and organizational search behavior, this article advances understanding by arguing that responsive and proactive market orientations have curvilinear effects on product development performance, that their interaction may be positively related to product development performance, and that their effects on new product program performance are moderated differentially by the organizational implementation conditions and marketing function power. Survey results of 175 U.S. firms indicate support for most of the hypotheses. Specifically, whereas responsive MO has a U-shaped relationship with new product program performance, proactive MO has an inverted U-shaped relationship with new product program performance. Contrary to the arguments presented here, the interaction of both orientations is negatively related to new product program performance. This study finds that both orientations are needed; however, new product program performance is enhanced when one is at higher level and the other is at lower level. Finally, responsive MO is only positively related to new product program performance under specific conditions such as when strategic consensus among managers is high. On the other hand, the positive effect of proactive MO on new product program performance is further strengthened when learning orientation and marketing power are high. Overall, this study suggests that the effects of responsive and proactive MO on new product program performance are more complex than previously theoretically argued and empirically examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a study which investigated the impact of research and development (R&D)-marketing interaction on new product performance in Chinese high technology firms. Relationship between information exchange and new product performance; Methodology; Results and discussion.

It has been widely recognized that marketing's interaction with other functional departments (e.g., R&D) has significant impact on new product success. How- ever, 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 inter- dependence 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article concerns the firm's acquisition of new product technology through licensing from foreign non-affiliate firms TL is a contractual method by which a firm (licensor) sells the rights to a product, process and/or management technology to another firm (licensee) in return for lump sum and/or ongoing royalty payments (Contractor, 1981, McDonald and Leahey, 1985) Following Capon and Glazer (1987), technology as used here refers to not only ideas embedded in a developed product, but also ideas embedded in the processes of manufacturing and management of the licensed-in technology As a method of technology exploitation, TL has received considerable attention from researchers (e g, Contractor, 1981, Ford and Ryan, 1981) However, as a technology acquisition method, TL has received comparatively little attention, particularly in relation to the factors which influence a firm's propensity to choose this method of technology acquisition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some firms take salesforce commitment to any new product as a given, seemingly adopting the attitude, ''If we build it, they will sell.'' However management has no guarantee of salesforce commitment to a new product For various reasons, salespeople may fail to sell a new product, or they may engage in dysfunctional behavior during the selling process -- for example, misrepresenting the product's benefits to gain short-term sales. Ensuring salesforce adoption of a new product requires careful consideration of the characteristics of the product, the competitive environment, the firm, and the members of the salesforce. In other words, managers who hope to engender support for a new product would do well to view the salespeople as a first line of customers. Successfully launching a new product to the company's salesforce requires the same high levels of creativity, energy, and managerial insight as does the product's launch into the marketplace. Consequently, managers and researchers need to examine more closely the factors underlying the successful launch of a new product to a firm's salesforce. As a first stop toward gaining greater insight into those factors, Kwaku Atuahene-Gima develops a model for exploring the characteristics that affect new-product adoption by the salesforce. His model suggests that a salesperson's commitment to a new product depends, to a large extent, on the salesperson's learning style, performance orientation, and problem-solving style. For example, he proposes that, compared to their colleagues with systematic problem-solving styles, salespeople with intuitive problem-solving styles are more likely to adopt a new product and are less likely to engage in dysfunctional behavior in the selling process. The model also suggests that the salesforce's perceptions of the firm's commitment to new products, tolerance for failure, and attitude toward intradepartmental conflict during the product development process play key roles in determining whether the sales force will take an active, positive approach to selling the new product For example, a firm that views occasional failures as opportunities for learning and growth offers an environment in which salespeople can accept the risks that selling a new product entails. The proposed model also takes into account the moderating effects of the product's innovativeness, the intensity of market competition, and the type of sales control systems that the firm uses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether or not industrialized nations are experiencing a fundamental shift from a manufacturing- to a service-based economy may be a matter of debate. However, the service sector is clearly growing at an explosive rate, particularly in comparison with manufacturing. With this in mind, we need to better understand how the successful development of new services differs from that of new products. Such understanding requires identifying the critical success factors for new service development (NSD), as well as contrasting them with the factors underlying successful new product development (NPD). Kwaku Atuahene-Gima describes the results of a study comparing the innovation activities of Australian services firms and manufacturers. The study explores managers' perceptions of the factors necessary for successful NSD and NPD. In addition to comparing the differing perceptions of managers of services firms and manufacturers, the study highlights implications of these differences for managers striving for improved NSD. Services and manufacturing firms focus on similar factors for improving innovation performance. However, the relative importance of those factors depends on the type of firm. The critical factor for services--the importance accorded to innovation activity in the firm's human resource strategy--ranks third in importance for manufacturers. Manufacturers focus primarily on product innovation advantage and quality. In contrast, service innovation advantage and quality ranks third in importance for service firms. Surprisingly, technology synergy is found to have a negative effect on new service performance. If a new service is a close fit with a firm's current technologies, competitors will likely be able to quickly imitate the new service. As a result, NSD efforts based on technology synergy will not provide a competitive advantage. Compared to manufacturers, successful service firms must place greater emphasis on the selection, development, and management of employees who work directly with the customer. Through effective self management, these contact personnel shape the quality of the customer relationship. In addition, their close contact and potentially long-term relationships with customers make such employees an important source of new ideas in the firm's NSD process. Such relationships also cast contact personnel in a make-or-break role in the launching of new services. INSET: BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many firms, emphasizing the importance of market orientation has taken on a mantra-like quality. Mission statements and memos, policies, and procedures all highlight the importance of staying in touch with the customer. it is also widely assumed that the relationship between market orientation and new product performance depends on environmental conditions and product characteristics. To date, however, little empirical evidence has been presented to support the assumption that market orientation influences new product performance. Kwaku Atuahene-Gima addresses this research need in a study of 275 Australian firms. In addition to exploring the relationship between market orientation and new product development activities and performance, his study examines the effects of environmental conditions and product characteristics. Specifically, the study investigates whether the relationship between market orientation and new product performance depends on the degree of product newness to customers and the firm; the intensity of market competition and the hostility of the industry environment; and the stage of the product life cycle at which the new product was introduced. The survey results provide strong support for the basic proposition that market orientation influences new product performance and development activities. The results show a strong positive relationship between market orientation and a new product's market performance. Market orientation is also shown to have a strong positive effect on proficiency of predevelopment activity, proficiency of launch activity, service quality, product advantage, marketing synergy, and teamwork, Although market orientation is generally found to be an important factor in the success of new products. its influence varies depending on the type of new product-that is, radical versus incremental. Market orientation appears to have greater influence on new product performance when the product represents an incremental change to both the customers and the firm. However, this does not mean that a market-oriented approach is unnecessary in the development of radically new products. Market orientation also has a greater effect when the perceived intensity of market competition and industry hostility are high, and during the early stage of the product life cycle. Because market competition and industry hostility typically intensify as the product life cycle progresses. these findings suggest that the effects of market orientation are pervasive. In other words, managers should not limit their expectations of market orientation to specific projects or specific stages of the development process and product life cycle. INSET: BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article empirically examines the factors that affect Australian engineering firms' propensities or intentions to adopt inward technology licensing (ITL) as a new product development method. Kwaku Atuahene-Gima reports results indicating that the major factors that influence the firm's propensity to adopt ITL are previous ITL experience, perceived relative costs and benefits of ITL, awareness of ITL opportunities, and the firm's internal new product development and R&D capabilities. The findings afford managerial insights into the firm's technology acquisition and marketing strategies. INSET: BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many marketing practitioners and authors already accept that inward technology licensing (ITL) can be a viable alternative source of new products to internal R&D. Yet, new product development research focuses mainly on internal development with little attention to external methods. Kwaku Atuahene-Gima reviews the small body of literature on ITL and examines the factors that may influence a firm to adopt ITL as an alternative to internal R&D. Using a conceptual framework to provide additional insights, he argues that the ITL adoption decision is an organizational behavioral response to internal and external environmental stimuli. INSET: BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]