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Developing creative new products requires a synthesis among customer-oriented and competitor-oriented learning, and new product development competence. However, underlying this synthesis is a paradox: how to integrate both customer and competitor insights within a technology-centric new product development process. In order to examine the nature of this organizational tension, this study develops a conceptual framework and tests a series of six hypotheses with data generated from our study of creative new products within 187 high-technology ventures in China. Differential effects are found in the way in which customer-oriented learning (neutral) and competitor-oriented learning (positive) relate to new product creativity. Their integration, meanwhile, is positively related to this new product outcome. Results also reveal that new product development competence, both independently and when integrated with customer-oriented learning, positively impacts new product creativity. However, the study also reveals a surprising finding of a substitution effect where the combination of competitor-oriented learning with new product development competence is inversely related to new product creativity. These findings are discussed, and their implications are derived for further research and both market and technology management.

We investigate the role of Chinese clan culture in influencing firms' strategic orientations and new product performance outcomes in this transitional economy. We also test the moderating effects of the type of marketing venture (independent or corporate) pursued and the type of product development strategy (improved or novel) employed. We report the results of an empirical study of 187 high-technology new product, marketing ventures in China. The extant literature is replete with examinations of Chinese national culture embodied in bureaucratic characteristics such as 'guanxi' or Confucian ideology. In contrast, we examine culture within the firm and consider that firms' clan culture, which is characteristic of Chinese collectivist ideals, can influence the strategic orientations they adopt. We find that clan culture is positively linked to strategic analysis and strategic defensiveness. We also identify positive relationships of strategic analysis and strategic defensiveness with new product performance. Finally, we reveal moderating effects of marketing venture type and product development strategy on clan culture -strategic orientation -new product performance links.

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