Selecting ideas for new product development

2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 380-396
Author(s):  
Geng Cui ◽  
Ling Peng ◽  
Laurent Pierre Florès

Purpose – New product concept screening, i.e., selecting a few viable innovative concepts from numerous candidates, involves high stakes and is complicated and resource intensive. Over the years, there has been heated debate about the relative merit of monadic (sequential) tests vs that of preference-based paired comparisons. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – This study proposes the Generalizability Theory as a framework to assess and compare the performance of traditional monadic test with the Adaptive Concept Screening (ACS) in terms of their testing results and psychometric quality. Findings – Using 50 yogurt concepts and two independent groups of respondents, the results indicate that ACS requires a significant smaller sample of respondents to achieve a necessary minimum G coefficient for decision making. Moreover, ACS offers a more discriminating and reliable solution for early stage concept screening as manifested by a higher G coefficient and greater percentage of variance due to the selected concepts given the same sampling design. Practical implications – The results lend strong support to ACS as a more cost-effective method for screening new product concepts and the Generalizability Theory as a systematic framework for assessing concept testing methods. Originality/value – This study adopts the Generalizability Theory framework to assess the validity of new product concept screening method.

2016 ◽  
Vol 116 (3) ◽  
pp. 603-619 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giancarlo Lauto ◽  
Finn Valentin

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the different heuristics adopted by a crowd and a management committee to evaluate new product proposals, and whether, in assessing the value of proposals, they emphasize different features. Design/methodology/approach – The study takes a quantitative analysis approach to study an internal innovation contest held by the biotechnology company Novozymes. The contest generated 201 proposals that were evaluated by 109 research and development professionals by means of a virtual preference market, and by a management committee. Findings – The crowd and the committees’ assessments of the value of the proposals were based on different features. The committee emphasized experience and inventors’ seniority; the crowd set more store on informative idea descriptions but penalized overly complex and lengthy proposals. Research limitations/implications – The design of the innovation contest does not allow full comparison of the preference functions of crowd and committee. The findings from this case study cannot be generalized. The early stage of new product development seems fruitful for investigating crowdsourcing and knowledge management. Practical implications – Firms should consider adopting preference markets for idea screening and evaluation since they appraise ideas from different angles compared to managers. However, they complement, rather than substitute managerial evaluation, especially in the case of more detailed proposals. Originality/value – This is one of the first attempts to identify differences in the decision-making processes of crowds and committees. The paper identifies their strengths as evaluators of new product ideas and finds that the “wisdom of crowds” has some limitations in relation to the ability to process complex information.


Author(s):  
Swithin S. Razu ◽  
Shun Takai

Estimation of demand is one of the most important tasks in new product development. How customers come to appreciate and decide to purchase a new product impacts demand and hence profit of the product. Unfortunately, when designers select a new product concept early in the product development process, the future demand of the new product is not known. Conjoint analysis is a statistical method that has been used to estimate a demand of a new product concept from customer survey data. Although conjoint analysis has been increasingly incorporated in design engineering as a method to estimate a demand of a new product design, it has not been fully employed to model demand uncertainty. This paper demonstrates and compares two approaches that use conjoint analysis data to model demand uncertainty: bootstrap of respondent choice data and Monte Carlo simulation of utility estimation errors. Reliability of demand distribution and accuracy of demand estimation are compared for the two approaches in an illustrative example.


2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (02) ◽  
pp. 1650027
Author(s):  
MANABU MIYAO

The product concept is crucial in new product development (NPD) because it represents an NPD project’s goal. In this context, most prior studies have regarded product concept development as a linear process but some recent studies have revealed that it also has nonlinear characteristics. The objective of this paper is to explore why this inconsistency has arisen and to develop a model and theory that illustrate both aspects of product concept development. To achieve this, we adopt the perspective of organisational interpretation systems (Daft and Weick (1984). Toward a model of organisations as interpretation systems. Academy of Management Review, 9(2), 289–295) and explore eight product development cases. Consequently, we develop a three-stage model and find that the linearity or nonlinearity of product concept development is determined by each NPD team’s assumption about the environment. We also consider product innovativeness and function equivocality, and establish that these are related to the NPD teams’ assumptions about the environment.


2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 418-425 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mehran Salavati ◽  
Milad Tuyserkani ◽  
Seyyede Anahita Mousavi ◽  
Nafiseh Falahi ◽  
Farshid Abdi

Purpose The principal aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between technological, marketing, organizational and commercialization risk management on new product development (NPD) performance. Design/methodology/approach Based on questionnaire, the data were collected from a sample of general automotive industry in Iran. Based on theoretical considerations, a model was proposed and descriptive statistic and hierarchical regression were used to measure the relationship between risk management factors and NPD performance. Findings Data analysis revealed that if organization can amplify their knowledge and information about risk and main factors that affect NPD process, not only can they do their work better but can also increase their ability to predict future happenings that affect performance. Research limitations/implications First, due to the relatively small sample size, caution should be exercised when interpreting the results. Second, the data were collected from automotive producer in Iran, which may restrict to some extent generalizability of the findings. Practical implications The results suggest that managers should consider more attention to risk management. If managers spread the risk management in all aspects of the NPD project, total performance will be increased and it can develop the probability of NPD success. Also organizations should perform great market research due to best commercialization. Originality/value Past researches have presented complete information about NPD process. But identifying and considering the effect of the risk management parameters that are connected to the NPD process were the main thrusts to perform the study. In this paper, based on past research about risk management of NPD, the extra aspect of process that can improve total performance of NPD has been examined.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wilert Puriwat ◽  
Danupol Hoonsopon

PurposeThis study is to compare the impact of organizational agility and flexibility on performance of each type of product innovation (radical vs incremental innovation). Additionally, the moderating effect of technological turbulence on the relationship between the two types of organization is examined.Design/methodology/approachBased on gaps in the existing literature, the survey data are collected from managers who are in charge of developing new products in three industries: food and beverage, chemical and machinery (N = 431). Confirmatory factory analysis is used to verify measurement items and regression analysis is used to test hypotheses.FindingsThe results show that organizational agility increases performance in radical innovation both in a certain situation and an environment with technological turbulence. In contrast, the impact of organizational flexibility is limited to increasing performance in both radical and incremental innovation performance in a certain situation.Originality/valueOur study extends the knowledge of organizational agility and flexibility in the domain of product innovation. Adaptation of organization to respond the technological turbulence will stimulate creativity of new product development teams to produce new useful ideas and transform these ideas to product innovation. The different types of organizing a new product development team to handle technological turbulence will provide different results in product innovation performance. In addition, the findings provide a recommendation on how the organization of a new product development team can improve performance in each type of product innovation under technological turbulence.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanderson César Macêdo Barbalho ◽  
Gladston Luiz Silva

PurposeThis paper aims to explore how new product development (NPD)-based project management offices (PMOs) work, their drivers to deliver performance and their project success impact.Design/methodology/approachThe study used a survey of 35 Brazilian and multi-national companies that identified the effort to perform a list of PMO functions, some PMO drivers in the company and five project performance perception indicators. The authors apply a specific set of statistics to uncover the relations between these dimensions of interest.FindingsThe factorial analysis allows us to find the main functions influencing each other. The project teams’ perception of project management (PM) performance is suggested as a success factor that drives PMOs when working on portfolio management issues, managing project files and promoting PM over the company.Practical implicationsThis paper contributes to a contingency approach for designing a project machine involving PMOs to support NPD projects. Managers can set the most suitable PMO functions avoiding mimicry when structuring their NPD efforts.Originality/valuePMOs have impacted team satisfaction and control of project data but not indicators related to triple constraints.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hao Shen ◽  
Yu Gao ◽  
Chuan Liu ◽  
Xiangru Chen

Purpose Integrating the coopetition perspective with institutional theory, this study aims to determine how balanced patterns (BPs) and combinative patterns (CPs) of coopetition impact firms’ new product development (NPD) and how these effects are contingent on the various types of interactions between firms and the institutional environments in which they are embedded. Design/methodology/approach To test the hypotheses, 303 firms in China were surveyed. Based on the responses, the proposed model was estimated using structural equation modeling and hierarchical regression analysis. Findings The findings indicate that CP of coopetition enhances NPD but a BP of coopetition impedes NPD. Further, the results suggest that obtaining government support positively moderates the effect of the CP on NPD but negatively moderates the effect of the BP. Conversely, influencing government policy negatively moderates the effect of the CP but positively moderates that of the BP on NPD. Research limitations/implications The findings indicate that different patterns of inter-firm coopetition may have different effects on NPD, thus, providing a holistic and dynamic understanding of the contingent value of coopetition for NPD. The findings also suggest that the complex effects of coopetition on NPD are influenced by institutional interactions, introducing further contingencies to the process of coopetition-based innovation. Practical implications This study provides guidelines for managers seeking to fully understand and capitalize on the dual nature of coopetition: they should be cautious about the different patterns of competition – cooperation interaction and manage their interactions with institutional environments to increase the benefits and avoid the potential damage that different types of coopetition may bring. Originality/value This study offers direct insights into the balanced nature of coopetition and opens up an avenue for further exploration of the specific effects of cooperation dominance and competition dominance on firm performance in the business-to-business context. Moreover, the proposed contingency model offers a potential interface between institutional and coopetition research on NPD in marketing and strategic fields.


2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (10) ◽  
pp. 1366-1385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanna Bahemia ◽  
Brian Squire ◽  
Paul Cousins

Purpose This paper explores openness within new product development (NPD) projects. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of breadth, depth and partner newness on product innovativeness and product competitive advantage. The authors also seek to examine the contingent effects of the appropriability regime. The authors make suggestions to academics and practitioners based on the findings. Design/methodology/approach The authors use a structured survey instrument producing an empirical analysis of 205 NPD projects in the manufacturing sector in the UK. The authors use an ordinary least squares regression model to test hypothesised relationships between openness (breadth, depth and partner newness), product innovativeness, product competitive advantage and the appropriability regime. Findings The authors find that each of the three dimensions of openness, depth, breadth and partner newness, have a significant but differing impact on product innovativeness. Specifically, the study indicates that breadth has a positive effect but only in the presence of a strong appropriability regime, partner newness has a direct positive effect, and depth a direct negative effect. The authors also find that product innovativeness has a positive impact on product competitive advantage. Research limitations/implications Further research should focus on replicating the findings in other countries, search for further moderating factors, such as the stage of the NPD process, and analyse the longitudinal impact of openness within NPD projects. Practical implications Organisations are encouraging managers to be more open in their approach to NPD. The authors’ findings suggest that managers need to think about the three dimensions of openness, breadth, depth and partner newness. Their engagement with each of these dimensions depends on the desired outcomes of the innovation project and the strength of patents. Originality/value The research extends the extant supplier involvement in new product development literature to examine the effect of up to 11 types of external actor in NPD projects. The authors test a new multi-dimensional measurement scale for the openness construct. The authors show that each dimension has a different relationship with product innovativeness.


2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-280
Author(s):  
Wassim J. Aloulou

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships between strategic orientations as well as the role played by them to impact the performance of industrial firms.Design/methodology/approachThe paper formulates some hypotheses from the literature review. These hypotheses are tested using structural equation modeling with data collected from 292 randomly selected firms operating in several industrial sectors in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.FindingsThe findings of this study showed the importance of these strategic orientations in enhancing the performance of Saudi industrial firms and emphasized the mediating role of entrepreneurial orientation in the relationships of market orientation and technology orientation to new product development performance and firm performance.Research limitations/implicationsThe study discusses the findings and advances certain limitations and research and managerial implications for future research avenues. It proposes some recommendations to help Saudi firms to choose more than one orientation simultaneously and adopt an appropriate configuration of orientations. Future research has to consider the interplay between these strategic orientations and the impacts of environmental turbulence in terms of market and technology turbulence on strategic orientations – performance relationship.Practical implicationsThe study suggests that managers of Saudi industrial firms should utilize a mix of aspects from several strategic orientations such as market and technology through entrepreneurial capabilities and resources that enhance higher levels of performance.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the literature on entrepreneurship and strategic management by showing the reliability of scales used and the confirmatory of the factor structure. It also contributes to business practices by showing the importance for Saudi firms to combine different strategic orientations and provide more attention to the interplay of these orientations in order to perform better in such a transitional context.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document