Efforts continue to identify new product development (NPD) best practices. Examples of recognized studies include those by the Product Development and Management Association's Comparative Performance Assessment Study and the American Productivity Quality Center NPD best practices study. While these studies designate practices that distinguish top-performing companies, it is unclear whether NPD practitioners as a group (not just researchers) are knowledgeable about what represents a NPD best practice. The importance of this is that it offers insight into how NPD practitioners are translating potential NPD knowledge into actual NPD practice. In other words, are practitioners aware of and able to implement NPD best practices designated by noteworthy studies? The answer to this question ascertains a current state of the field toward understanding NPD best practice and the maturity level of various practices. Answering this question further contributes to our understanding of the diffusion of NPD best practices knowledge by NPD professionals, possibly identifying gaps between prescribed and actual practice. Beginning the empirical examination by conducting a Delphi methodology with 20 leading innovation researchers, the study examined the likely dimensions of NPD and corresponding definitions to validate the NPD practices framework originally proposed by Kahn, Barczak, and Moss. A survey was then conducted with practitioners from the United States, United Kingdom, and Ireland to gauge opinions about perceptions of the importance of different NPD dimensions, specific characteristics reflected by each of these dimensions, and the level of NPD practice maturity that these characteristics would represent. The study is therefore unique in that it relies on the opinions of NPD practitioners to see what they perceive as best practice versus prior studies where the researcher has identified and prescribed best practices.Results of the present study find that seven NPD dimensions are recommended, whereas the 2006 Kahn, Barczak, and Moss framework had suggested six dimensions. Among practitioners across the three country contexts, there is consensus on which dimensions are more important, providing evidence that NPD dimensions may be generalizable across Western contexts. Strategy was rated higher than any of the other dimensions followed by research, commercialization, and process. Project climate and metrics were perceived as the lowest in importance. The high weighting on strategy and low weighting on metrics and project climate reinforce previous best practice findings. Regarding the characteristics of each best practice dimension, practitioners appear able to distinguish what constitutes poor versus best practice, but consensus on distinguishing middle range practices are not as clear.The suggested implications of these findings are that managers should emphasize strategy when undertaking NPD efforts and consider the fit of their projects with this strategy. The results further imply that there are clearly some poor practi...

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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore new product development (NPD) best practice from a practitioner's perspective. A large body of research has been completed on best practices in NPD. However, there is a limited knowledge of the extent to which practitioners are aware of what constitutes a NPD best practice and are aware of the relative importance of different NPD best practices.Design/methodology/approachUsing an established framework, this research investigates NPD practitioners' views of best practices. Data were collected through a survey using a combination of quantitative and qualitative questions from 70 SMEs and 74 large companies in Ireland and the UK.FindingsThe results show that practitioners assign different levels of importance to the various NPD best practices. Regardless of company size, strategy is viewed as the most importance best practice for NPD, while metrics and performance evaluation is seen as the least important. This does not support previous research, which has shown that excellence in NPD process is the primary driver of NPD success. Additionally, there were differences between the specific practices that NPD practitioners from SMEs and large companies considered to be best practice.Originality/valueThis paper identifies a gap between what researchers and practitioners understand to be NPD best practice. The results further our understanding of how NPD practitioners translate existing NPD knowledge into actual NPD practice. The results presented in this paper suggest that there is much to be gained by strengthening the links between researchers and NPD practitioners. There is limited value in developing theories and models about the “best” ways to manage NPD unless these model and theories are fully diffused and can be made useful to NPD practitioners.

Many studies have established relationships among market orientation, new product performance, and organizational performance; however, few have examined these relationships in small firms. Where small firms have been examined, the results suggest that the relationships identified in large firms do not always apply in small firms. Previous research has linked market orientation with organizational performance, with several authors demonstrating that market orientation increases new product success and thereby improves organizational performance. Ensuring optimal new product performance is essential for small firms, particularly in light of the strong relationship between new product success and a company's health. However, given that the success rate of new products worldwide has been low, increasing understanding of what drives new product performance is critical. Measures of new product success can be grouped into five categories: (1) market-level measures; (2) financial measures; (3) customer-acceptance measures; (4) product-level measures; and (5) timing measures. In small firms, the most frequently used success measures are customer-acceptance and product-level measures; however, a link between the new product measures used and organizational success has not been established. This paper presents a model linking market orientation, new product performance, and organizational performance in small firms. The model was explored using data collected from 106 small firms in Ireland. The results show significant relationships among market orientation, new product performance, and organizational performance. However, when these relationships are explored in more detail, it emerges that of the three measures used for market orientation only one-competitor orientation-is significantly linked with new product performance. Additionally, of the five measures used for new product performance only two-market performance and financial performance-are linked with organizational performance. The findings of this study demonstrate that small firms report significantly lower levels of competitor orientation than customer orientation or interfunctional coordination. However, competitor orientation is the only dimension of market orientation that is significant in predicting new product performance. Small firms also perform significantly better on product-level and customer-acceptance new product performance measures than on marketlevel, financial, or timing measures. The study makes four recommendations for small firms. First, small firms should keep a closer eye on their competitors, improving their understanding of what products competitors offer, why customers do or don't buy competitor products, how they attract customers, and how satisfied customers are with competitors' products. Second, they need to be more aware of the impact that new products will have on their market position in terms of volume, sales growth, revenue, and market share. Third, small firms need to put more effort into measuring the financial performance ...

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