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Abstract. We present an approach to forecast customer orders of ready-to-launch new products that are similar to past products. The approach fits product life cycle (PLC) curves to historical customer [...]

Numerous studies in mainstream product commercialization research have focused on the three main aspects; order of entry, relative product advantages, and firm competitiveness. However, the emphasis of the extant research base has not completely found it's way to investigating the concerns of speed of new product rollouts from a global launch perspective. Specifically, little attention has been given to study the details of the nature of sequential launch and simultaneous launch strategies. This paper aims to provide a better understanding of the concepts of sequential and simultaneous international product rollouts through a review of the literature and theory-building endeavours. Although there is evidence of interest pertaining to the launch concepts and their consequences on product success, little research has employed a strong theoretical foundation that integrates both launch strategies in a single framework. Consequently, academics and practitioners are left with limited guidelines for determining the appropriate launch approach when introducing a new product to the global marketplace. To fill the knowledge gap, the authors develop a contextualized model that compares and contrasts the effectiveness of the respective launch strategies along varying degrees of environmental hostility, dynamism, and complexity. The authors highlight conceptual and methodological issues that are imperative for future empirical investigation. We draw on contingency theory and adopt a strategic alignment perspective to develop our conceptual model. Contingency theory has been established as a tool to identify a viable match between organizational strategies and environmental conditions to exploit opportunities and threats. .' There are a number of empirical studies that have used contingency theory and shown that environmental-strategy fit relates positively to performance. Firms, therefore, need to implement different launch strategies according to specific environmental setting (e.g., global customer preference, general competitive reactions, foreign regulation standards, economic conditions) when launching new products beyond national borders. Research propositions are introduced to describe potential contingency effects on the launch strategy-performance link. It is crucial, however, that the decision for employing a specific approach should not be determined solely on the basis of direct advantages (or disadvantages) of launch strategies. This study views that neither sequential nor simultaneous launch strategy, in isolation, is sufficient in explaining the overall outcome of launch strategies. Export managers should therefore take into account the contingency perspective for optimizing launch performance. The selection of a particular launch strategy will be a key determinant of the success of a new product's introduction into the market. JEL Classifications: M13, M31, N10, O33 Keywords: Sequential launch, Simultaneous launch, Foreign markets, Environmental factors, Contingency approach, INTRODUCTION The success of new products depends on adopting well-planned launch strategies. Due to the importance of the strategic launch of new products, the subject has received much attention in [...]

It is suggested that knowledge and the network strength of multinational corporations (MNC) are the two most important firm resources that influence new product outcomes. A survey of MNC headquarters reveal that the effects of cross-border knowledge transfer on new product outcomes depend on the levels of network strength and environmental turbulence.

In a two-cone Heckscher-Ohlin model with CES preferences and a continuum of goods, new northern goods increase the northern skill premium if they are skilled-labor intensive, and may increase the premium if they are unskilled-labor intensive. Thus, the introduction of new goods into US technology could have done more to increase the US skill premium than a closed-economy model would predict. I also explore how new northern goods affect the southern skill premium and what happens if they generate preference-induced reversals across existing goods. I develop a two-step solution method that simplifies comparative static analyses in the two-cone Heckscher-Ohlin model. Keywords: New goods; Skill premium; Two-cone Heckscher-Ohlin model; Preference-induced reversals; Two-step solution method JEL classification: F1

An examination on the new product introductions and failures when firms make introduction decisions under uncertainty about future demand or cost conditions is presented. It is shown that increased uncertainty is not necessarily detrimental to new product introductions, and that markets that have firms with more positively correlated cost structures might attract fewer new product introductions and have fewer new product failures.

Demand-revealing auction is a strategy to obtain willingness-to-pay-information for new products. The demand revelation capabilities of the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak mechanism and the Vickrey auction are compared to obtain willingness-to-pay information from a sample of French consumers. The procedures followed in the study indicated that Vickrey auction is more effective than BDM method.

Byline: Pilar Carbonell (1), Ana Isabel Rodriguez Escudero (2), Jose Luis Munuera Aleman (3) Keywords: project selection decisions; review points; go/no-go criteria; technology newness Abstract: This study shows that the relative effect of five dimensions of go/no-go criteria on new product success is contingent on the stage of the development process and newness of the technology. Specifically, strategic fit criteria are critical to new product success at the initial screening. Technical criteria are significantly correlated with product success only at the go-to-development decision gate. Market opportunity criteria relate positively with project success at the initial screening, the market launch gate and the post-launch review. Financial criteria correlate positively with success from the go-to-development decision to the first post-launch review. Customer-acceptance criteria stand out as equally important to success throughout the entire development process. In relation to the moderating effect of technology newness, it was found that customer acceptance and market opportunity criteria at the initial screening are more important for the success of low technologically innovative projects than for the success of high technologically innovative projects. At the initial screening, financial criteria exert a negative effect on the success of projects incorporating highly innovative technologies. Author Affiliation: (1) School of Administrative Studies, York University, Atkinson College, 4700 Keele St, Toronto, ON, Canada, M3J 1P3 (2) Facultad de Ciencias Economicas y Empresariales, Universidad de Valladolid, Spain (3) Facultad de Economia y Empresa, Universidad de Murcia, Spain Article History: Registration Date: 16/12/2004

Byline: Paul Ingenbleek (1), Marion Debruyne (2), Ruud T. Frambach (3), Theo M. M. Verhallen (4) Keywords: pricing; new product development; competitive strategy Abstract: The purpose of this study is to examine the success of new product pricing practices and the conditions upon which success is contingent. We distinguish three different pricing practices that refer to the use of information on customer value, competition, and costs respectively. Following Monroe's (1990) price discretion, we argue that the success of these practices is contingent on relative product advantage and competitive intensity. The hypotheses are tested on pricing decisions for new industrial products. Our results show that there are no general 'best' or 'bad' practices, but that a contingency approach is appropriate. These results may help reduce the complexity that managers experience in pricing new products. Author Affiliation: (1) Wageningen University and Agricultural Economics Research Institute in The Hague, The Netherlands (2) Goizueta Business School, Emory University, Atlanta, USA (3) Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (4) Faculty of Economics and Business Administration at Tilburg University, The Netherlands Article History: Registration Date: 07/10/2004

Byline: Niraj Dawar (1,2), Miklos Sarvary (3) Keywords: Price; Economic Signaling; Perceived Quality; Experiments Abstract: Economic signaling theory suggests that consumers interpret price withinthe context of market conditions. Under specific conditions it predicts thatlow price may signal high quality. Results from an experiment designed totest the behavioral assumptions underlying this prediction indicate thatconsumers intentions to purchase conform to the predictions of economicsignaling theory, but their judgments of product quality do not. The resultssuggest that consumers' response to signals may be more complex thanpreviously shown. Author Affiliation: (1) Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada, N6A 3K7 (2) INSEAD, Canada (3) Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305-5015 Article History: Registration Date: 22/09/2004

The process of 'learning by doing' is used to determine why new products, services or processes often encounter problems after being introduced to intended use environments. Results show that interference finding identifies several process machine problems. Results also indicate that problem identification in stable and changing environments can be achieved and that zero defect is almost impossible.

New beverage products developments in the fields of minor additives like flavors, acidulants, preservatives, colorants, vitamins, minerals, and texture-modifying ingredient are the current trends in beverage additives, as well as some marketing trends. This development is supported by a critical touch of flavor, tartness, spoilage prevention, color, and nutritional aspects. These products are seen to cover the general demand of health issues. This development with various analysis on each nutritional aspects is discussed.

The machine tool business is an exemplar of beleaguered U.S. high-technology industries. In the early 1980s, most machine tool companies responded to the recession by slashing output. This left the [...]

Why is it that some firms introduce distinctive new products time and time again, when so many other firms are far less able to generate new products? More specifically, some [...]

The effects of order of entry on market share, trial penetration and repeat purchases for frequently purchased consumer goods are analyzed. A time series cross-sectional analysis of 18 successful later entrants in eight categories of consumer packaged goods over a 69-week period is made. After correcting for differences in marketing effort, later entrants suffer a long-term market share disadvantage. New evidence of the penalties associated with later entry are found and discussed.

Many established global companies discount the need to innovate when competing in emerging markets. After all, innovation is expensive and risky. So, how can it make sense to spend heavily [...]

Byline: Yacine Ouzrout, Hichem Geryville, Abdelaziz Bouras, Nickolas S. Sapidis The design and development of complex products invariably involves many actors who have different points of view on the problem they are addressing, the product being developed and the process by which it is being developed. The actors' viewpoints (VPs) approach was designed to provide an organisational framework in which these different perspectives/points of views, and their relationships, could be explicitly gathered and formatted (by actor activity's focus). The approach acknowledges the inevitability of multiple interpretations of product information as different views and promotes gathering of actors' interests. It also helps in providing support for the information integration through the lifecycle of the products and for the collaboration between the supply chain actors. In this paper, we present the multiple VPs approach, and we illustrate it by an industrial example on cyclone vessel products.

Byline: Kristina Lauche The early stages of product innovation can crucially influence the success and direction of any product. Yet they tend to be fuzzy, highly politicised and notoriously under-researched. This paper explores the characteristics of early design stages based on extensive field observations in two case studies. Both teams not only attempted to innovate radically their product, but also had to re-think the strategy and the organisation. The analysis of video recordings, artefacts and interviews showed that the key challenges were to integrate the demands and different innovation potentials into a coherent concept and to coordinate team activities and negotiate resources. Later, these secondary tasks of design innovation were often perceived as a burden by the designers, but turned out to be of crucial importance for the success of the project.

Byline: Shu-Hua Chien, Jyh-Jeng Wu The study analyses factors that influence firms' decisions to make pre-announcements on new products and products withdrawn. A survey is conducted and a structural equation model to study the relationships among the factors is developed. The two industries are electronics industry and information software industry in Taiwan, where pre-announcements are frequent. The empirical findings show that technical skill and specific investment are all important, but product complexity is not a statistically significant factor.

Byline: Badr Haque, Michael James Moore The aim of this paper is to describe the application of the Womack and Jones principles of Lean Thinking to the New Product Introduction (NPI) process (from concept development to detailed design through to customer delivery). Whilst techniques such as concurrent engineering (or concurrent product development) have been implemented and have been quite successful in improving NPI, there is still a shortfall in the expected or desired improvements to NPI. This shortfall, we believe, can be bridged through the application of lean thinking to NPI, in particular the five lean principles proposed by Womack and Jones. In this paper, each principle is defined and characterised within the context of NPI. The work presented was developed on the Society of British Aerospace Companies' UK Lean Aerospace Initiative involving aerospace companies of all sizes from across the UK. The paper concludes by summarising the key methods and tools that enable Lean Product Introduction (LPI), and by discussing the key adjustments required to the manufacturingoperations definitions of Waste and Value to accommodate the demands of effective and efficient NPI.

Byline: Oswald Jones, Nelson Tang The ability of firms to introduce new products and to improve their manufacturing processes is central to the creation of competitive advantage. However, Utterback and Abernathy argue that during the course of a product life-cycle there is a gradual shift in emphasis from product to process innovations. It is therefore essential for managers to understand the interaction of product and process during the shift from introduction to maturity. Zahra et al. integrate the frameworks developed by Miles and Snow and Porter to give five generic strategic types: Defender, Cost Leader, Analyser, Cost Differentiator, Prospector. Of central importance to the model is whether managers concentrate their resources on product or process innovation. To examine the relationship between product and process innovation, research was carried out in two mid-corporate manufacturing companies. PAC and Stern are suppliers to the major motor manufacturers but are not direct competitors. The two companies are classified as different strategic types; PAC has adopted an 'analyser' strategy and Stern is pursuing a 'cost leadership' strategy. The results confirm that generic strategies have direct implications for technology strategy and for the emphasis on product or process innovation.