Factors Affecting New Product Success: Cross‐Country Comparisons

Abstract

Although considerable effort has been devoted to identifying the factors that contribute to new product success and failure, plenty of work remains to be done in this area. For example, many studies of this subject focus on companies in specific parts of the world (in particular, North America, Europe, and Japan). It remains to be seen whether the findings from these studies apply to the new product development (NPD) efforts of companies in other regions, let alone on a global basis. Sanjay Mishra, Dongwook Kim, and Dae Hoon Lee address this issue in a study of the factors that contribute to the success or failure of NPD efforts in South Korean firms. To explore the question of whether a global set of success factors can be identified, they compare their findings with those of similar studies conducted in Canada and China. Classifying these countries in terms of stages of economic development (with China and Canada at opposite extremes and Korea in the middle), they expect to find the greatest dissimilarities in their comparisons of China and Canada. Marketing managers from 144 Korean firms provided in formation about 288 successful and unsuccessful products. Their responses indicate that the factors most closely related to new product outcomes in Korea are market intelligence, product‐firm compatibility, the nature of the new product idea (for example, whether the product idea was market derived, whether the product specifications were clearly defined by the marketplace), launch effort, and general characteristics of the new product venture (such as the product's innovativeness to the market and its technical complexity). Several of these factors were emphasized in studies of Canadian and Chinese NPD success, though respondents to those studies also highlighted the importance of the product offering and proficiency of formal NPD activities. Contrary to expectations, China and Canada show the greatest similarity among the three countries studied, in terms of the relative importance of the various NPD success factors. On the other hand, China and Korea are more similar in terms of the effects of the variables studied. In other words, if a variable is related to new product failure in Korea, that variable is most likely also related to failure in China. Although some similarities are evident among all three countries, the findings in this study do not point toward a single, global formula for NPD success.

A critical look at technological innovation typology and innovativeness terminology: a literature review

“…The measurements utilized in the empirical analyses reviewed can be broken into two frameworks; (a) a macrolevel where the concern is measuring how the characteristics of product innovation is new to the world, the market, or an industry [4,35,37,40,50,64], and (b) a microlevel where product innovativeness is identified as new to the firm or the customer [41]. In the literature included in this comparison, researchers most frequently used both a macro and a microperspective in modeling the construct [2,10,11,12,31,20,21,45].…”

“…Some products, of course, may require discontinuities in both marketplace and technological factors. Studies reviewed cover all three of these scenarios; marketplace discontinuity [4,33,50,64], technological discontinuity [10,37], and both types of discontinuities [2,11,12,21,31,35,40,41,45].…”

Product development in the automotive industry: crucial success drivers for technological innovations

“…The most common classification is to distinguish between the process steps from idea to market introduction and to differentiate between technical and marketing activities. Both are studied mainly regarding the quality of execution and the proficiency of these activities (e.g., Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1986;Parry and Song, 1994;Mishra et al, 1996). Organisational issues are covered, as proposed by Cooper, by researching the role of cross-functional teams and leadership.…”

“…The predevelopment activities, in particular, are often positively correlated with success within the studies (e.g., Cooper, 1988;Kotzbauer, 1992;Parry and Song, 1994;Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1995c;Mishra et al, 1996;Cooper, 1998;Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 2000). Cooper and Kleinschmidt stress the importance of predevelopment steps and call them 'up-front homework'.…”

Success in Israeli high-tech start-ups; Critical factors and process

“…Nesheim (1997) holds that the target market should be large and rapidly expanding, so the venture should consider market size, intensity of competition, revenue (and margins) potential over five years and potential customers. Mishra et al (1996) and found that markets growth and size are often highly positively correlated with new product success. But conversely, Stuart and Abetti (1987) found a strong negative correlation between success in young technological companies and market attractiveness.…”