The Function of Marketing and Industrial Structure in Alternating Product Development Innovation

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER # 1: INTRODUCTION1

Background of the Study1

Problem Statement2

Aim of the Study3

Research Question3

Portfolio-Level Factors3

Product-Level Factors4

Significance of the Study6

CHAPTER # 2: LITERATURE REVIEW7

Innovation7

Open and Closed Innovation7

Inter-firm Relational Knowledge Stores9

Marketing Approach10

Product Life Cycle12

CHAPTER # 3: METHODOLOGY15

Mixed Research15

Classification of research methods16

Multi-method studies16

Mixed method studies16

Steps in mixed methodology16

Strength and weakness of the mixed research17

Strengths17

Weaknesses18

Instrument for data collection18

Data analysis19

Ethical Consideration19

REFERENCES20

CHAPTER # 1: INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

New product development has received a great deal of attention in the strategy literature, and is a firm capability that can improve overall firm performance. Some research has shown that products launched in the past five years can account for nearly a half of a firm's annual sales and profits, but new product development is not always a successful process with some industries indicating failure rates to be 40% and others showing failure rates approaching 80% (Kyffin and Gardien 2009 69). It is no surprise new product development is of continued keen interest to both practitioners and researchers.

For researchers and managers, an area of interest in new product development processes is the role of open innovation. Open innovation considers pathways of inputs to innovation, and is the ability of a firm to use ideas from the outside world and also to allow others to use the firm's unutilized ideas. Open innovation goes beyond using customers, rivals, and universities as sources of innovation and are more about the use and employment of external intellectual property while also generating internal research driven intellectual property. This openness highlights the value of knowledge residing outside the firm by viewing the boundary of the firm as permeable where ideas can both flow inside the walls of the organization as well as flow outwards (Timmor and Katz-Navon 2008 249).

While some authors argue in favour of following open innovation to be more successful, it is not only important to follow open innovation, but it is also ever more important to evaluate contextual factors which may influence the effectiveness of following open innovation. Because the exchange of knowledge is between two parties, understanding the firm's ability to connect with other firms is increasingly important when studying open innovation.

Problem Statement

Open product innovation is the understanding that valuable knowledge resides outside the firm and can be used inside the firm to enhance new product development. It is important to study as it can provide an innovating firm with an opportunity to achieve a competitive advantage over rival firms. Social network characteristics are used to evaluate how a firm is connected with other firms.

There is a broad spectrum of measures of new product development success, and these measures can represent the following categories: firm-level, program level, product-level, financial performance, and customer acceptance. As a multidimensional assessment of new product development success would better assess the effectiveness of new product development related activities, this research lead by other researchers and continue with the usage of a multidimensional assessment of new product development success (Heskett 2008 ...