Understanding antecedents of new product development speed: A meta‐analysis

Abstract

New product development (NPD) speed is a key component of time‐based strategy, which has become increasingly important for managing innovation in a fast‐changing business environment. This meta‐analytic review assesses the generalizability of the relationships between NPD speed and 17 of its antecedents to provide a better understanding of the salient and cross‐situationally consistent factors that affect NPD speed. We grouped the antecedents into four categories of strategy, project, process, and team, and found that process and team characteristics are more generalizable and cross‐situationally consistent determinants of NPD speed than strategy and project characteristics. We also conducted subgroup analyses and found that research method variables, such as level of analysis, source of data, and measurement of speed, moderate the relationships between NPD speed and its antecedents. We apply the study's findings to assess several models of NPD speed, such as the balanced model of product development, the strategic orientation and organizational capability model, the compression vs. the experiential model, the centrifugal and centripetal model, and the product development cycle time model. We also discuss the implications of our findings for research and practice.

Supply capability creation process: Key milestone criteria and activities

“…Not involving the suppliers in the production decisions may lead to high costs and low production capacity (Chen, Damanpour & Reilly, 2010 Selldin & Olhager, 2007). The goal of the NPD process is not only to develop new products technically but also to assist the ramp-up of the supply-chain activities as early as possible, which then implies to involve the supply-chain representatives into the NPD process (Van Echtelt, Wynstra, Van Weele & Duysters, 2008;Hilletofth et al, 2010).…”

Value Creation Mechanism of Social Enterprises in Manufacturing Industry: Empirical Evidence from Korea

“…Third, in case of frugal innovation, new product development is highly relevant to the company's existing resources and previous experience and thus additional investments such as financial and human resources for product development are not much necessary [33]. These attributes improve a company's speed in time-to-market and shorten time to gain profits through new products [42,43]. Product innovation of SEs can also have positive impacts on improving profitability by reducing investment costs and contributing to fast product launch by focusing on product simplicity, usability and standardization rather than on developing new technologies that require huge investment costs.…”

Organized Innovation: A Framework for Effectively Managing Innovation

“…Hargadon warns that larger innovation networks mean more time and more relationship management 41 . This conflicts with the need for faster, more efficient idea-to-market innovation processes 16 . Therefore, leaders wanting to increase collaboration should ensure they set proper expectations, use consistent communication and motivation strategies, and enable effective and efficient team-building from the beginning with appropriate team sizes 41,75 .…”

“…Another emergent theme in the recent innovation literature is the paradox between speed to market and long-term execution 16 . Abstract ideas or discoveries must be translated into practice to have any impact, and that translation may take many years 20,39,65 .…”

“…Leaders often unintentionally undermine research motivation and innovation success when they suffer from strategic attention deficit disorder -an inclination to move to the next big thing before they really know if the current trajectory is working 4 . We suggest that it is possible to aim for efficiency in new product development 16 This framework may help address the paradox of speed versus long-term execution.…”