bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
PDMA Research on New Product Development Practices: Updating Trends and Benchmarking Best Practices
Authors: Griffin Abbie 
Published: October 2003

Product development professionals may have the feeling that yet another buzzword or magic bullet always lurks just around the corner. However, researchers have devoted considerable effort to helping practioners determine which tools, techniques, and methods really do offer a competitive edge. Starting 30 years ago, research efforts have aimed at understanding NPD practices and identifying those which are deemed “best practices.” During the past five years, pursuit of this goal has produced numerous privately available reports and two research efforts sponsored by the PDMA.Abbie Griffin summarizes the results of research efforts undertaken during the past five years and presents findings from the most recent PDMA survey on NPD best practices. This survey, conducted slightly more than five years after PDMA's first best‐practices survey, updates trends in processes, organizations, and outcomes for NPD in the U.S., and determines which practices are more commonly associated with firms that are more successsful in developing new products. The survey has the following objectives: determining the current status of NPD practices and performance; understanding how product development has changed from five years ago; determining whether NPD practice and performance differ across industry segments; and, investigating process and product development tools that differentiate product development success.The survey findings indicate that NPD processes continue to evolve and become more sophisticated. NPD changes continually on multiple fronts, and firms that fail to keep their NPD practices up to date will suffer an increasingly marked competitive disadvantage. Interestingly, although more than half of the respondents use a cross‐functional stage‐gate process for NPD, more than one‐third of all firms in the study still use no formal process for managing NPD.The findings suggest that firms are not adequately handling the issue of team‐based rewards. Project‐completion dinners are for the most frequently used NPD reward; they are also the only reward used more by best‐practice firms than by the rest of the respondents. The best‐practice firms participating in the study do not use financial rewards for NPD. Compared to the other firms in the study, best‐practice firms use more multifunctional teams, are more likely to measure NPD processes and outcomes, and expect more from their NPD programs.
Speed‐to‐Market and New Product Performance Trade‐offs
Authors: Bayus Barry L. 
Published: October 2003

When pressed to accelerate a development effort, more than a few managers have responded in terms such as “Good, fast, cheap … Pick any two.” Time‐to‐market decisions clearly play an important role in determining the ultimate success or failure of a new product. Just as clearly, however, speed to market is not the sole determinant of success. The seemingly offhanded “Pick any two” response points to the tradeoffs that product development managers must make in their decisions about development time and costs.Barry Bayus discusses the relationship between product development time and costs, and he fomulates a mathematical model that simultaneously considers the decisions regarding time‐to‐market and product performance levels. He applies the model to two competitive scenarios, and he identifies the optimal entry timing and product performance decisions for various market, demand, and cost conditions.In the first scenario, a firm must decide whether to accelerate development efforts to catch a competitor that has just introduced a new product. Analysis of the tradeoffs among the various parameters in the model suggests that fast development of low‐performance products is optimal under the following conditions: a relatively short window of market opportunity, a weak competitor, and relatively high development costs. For example, if the competitor is weak, high performance levels are not necessary and the firm can safely reduce time‐to‐market. Under the same scenario (that is, accelerating development to catch a competitor), the analysis suggests that fast development of products with high performance levels is optimal under conditions of relatively high sales and relatively flat development costs.In the second scenario, the firm must decide whether to speed development efforts to beat the competition to market. Analysis of the various tradeoffs for this scenario suggests that first‐to‐market status for a product with a high performnace level is optimal under the following conditions: a relatively long window of market opportunity, relatively high sales, and relatively flat development costs. With a long product lifecycle, stable margins, and high sales, the firm can generate sufficient revenue to offset the increased cost incurred in speeding a high‐performance product to market. Beating a competitor to market with a low‐performance product is never optimal for the cases considered here.
Are Really New Product Development Projects Harder to Shut Down?
Authors: Schmidt Jeffrey B. , Calantone Roger J. 
Published: October 2003

Just as a good houseguest knows when it's time to say good‐bye, effective managers must recognize when it's time to terminate a new product development (NPD) project. As a product progresses toward commercialization, a manager's reluctance to terminate a failing project becomes increasingly expensive. Despite this growing expense, however, many managers are reluctant to shut down failing NPD projects.Jeffrey Schmidt and Roger Calantone hypothesize that this reluctance may be even more pronounced for innovative new products than for incremental NPD efforts. They suggest that perhaps the excitement that really new products engender within a company makes managers more reluctant to shut down the NPD project, even in the face of clear‐cut evidence that the project is not a winner. To test these assumptions, they conducted a decision‐making experiment in which managers were asked to make go/no‐go decisions at each stage in a hypothetical NPD project. One project involved an innovative new product; the other project involved an incremental development—that is, a line extension that offered only marginal size and cost reductions compared to current models.At the outset of the experiment, participants were given market share and profit objectives for assessing the new product's performance. At each stage in the hypothetical NPD project, the participants then received updated performance data. The performance data provided to participants was identical for the two hypothetical projects, and fell increasingly farther below the performance objectives as the project progressed.The results of the experiment support the hypothesized relationship between product innovativeness and managers' reluctance to terminate a failing NPD project. Given identical, poor, performance forecasts, the managers who participated in this experiment were more optimistic about the likelihood of success, were more committed to the project, and were more likely to opt for continuing the project when it involved the more innovative product. In fact, the participants were more likely to allow the highly innovative NPD project to proceed all the way through commercialization, notwithstanding the progressively ominous performance feedback.
Discontinuous Innovation and the New Product Development Process
Authors: Veryzer Robert W. 
Published: October 2003

Although many new‐products professionals may harbor hopes of developing “the next big thing” in their respective industries, most product development efforts focus on incremental innovations. Accordingly, most research on the new‐product development (NPD) process focuses on the development of evolutionary products. For new‐products professionals seeking insights into the means for achieving breakthrough innovations, a fundamental question remains unanswered: Does the NPD process for discontinuous products differ from the process for incremental, or continuous, products?To provide a better understanding of managerial practices associated with discontinuous innovation, Robert Veryzer presents findings from an in‐depth study of eight discontinuous product development projects. The study explores the key factors that affect the discontinuous NPD process, as well as the methods that the firms in this study use for assessing the radically new products they have in development. From the findings in this study, he develops a descriptive model of the discontinuous product development process, and he offers insights into the requirements for effective management of discontinuous innovation projects.Although half the firms in the study use a formal process for evaluating radically innovative products, the participants in the study generally do not employ a formal, highly structured process for managing discontinuous NPD efforts. However, these firms do follow a consistent, logical process in the development of radical innovations, and their process differs significantly from incremental NPD processes.The processes used by the firms in this study are more exploratory and less customer driven than the typical, incremental NPD process. The impetus for all the projects in this study comes from the convergence of developing technologies, various contextual or environmental factors (for example, government regulations), and a product champion or visionary. Starting from these drivers, the discontinuous NPD process focuses on formulating a product application for the emerging technologies. In all cases, these firms developed prototypes at an earlier stage than the typical, incremental NPD process. To aid in the formulation of a new product application from emerging technologies, prototype construction in these discontinuous NPD projects precedes opportunity analysis, assessment of market attractiveness, market research, and financial analysis.
Enhancing New Product Development Performance: An Organizational Learning Perspective
Authors: Adams Marjorie E. , Day George S. , Dougherty Deborah 
Published: October 2003

Several years ago, an editorial in a software industry journal asked readers, “Why aren't they using all those marvelous methods?” The focus of the editorial was on software engineering methods, but the question also applies to the broader realm of new product development (NPD). Proven tools exist for gathering, disseminating, and using market information. But despite widespread recognition of the important role that market knowledge plays in NPD, most firms fail to employ these tools in a consistent manner.Marjorie E. Adams, George S. Day, and Deborah Dougherty contend that the tools for successful NPD cannot be implemented successfully until we understand the barriers that hinder an organization's capabilities for learning about markets. To foster that understanding, they describe the results of a study that explores the organizational barriers to learning about markets for new products. The study examines 40 NPD efforts in 15 large firms, and it has the following goals: identifying the processes through which organizational barriers impede market learning, developing specific ideas for how NPD professionals can cope more effectively with these barriers, and offering suggestions for improving market tools and techniques to help overcome these barriers.The study identifies three organizational learning barriers: avoiding ambiguity, compartmentalized thinking, and inertia. For the participants in this study, these barriers persistently act in specific ways to inhibit market learning. In acquiring market information, people typically focus on less ambiguous, more easily understood technologies and business truisms. Dissemination of market information is hindered because people focus on their own goals, which are often defined within their department's role instead of the overall goals of the project. Inertia acts as a barrier to the effective use of market information. That is, people tend to proceed as they always have, maintaining the status quo rather than adjusting actions to capitalize on market learning.By encouraging broad functional participation in the acquisition and interpretation of data, NPD organizations can reduce the perceived ambiguity of market information. However, cross‐functional approaches are only one step in overcoming organizational barriers. Managers must enable teams to develop rich, vivid market data, help people extend established routines into new practices, and promote trust. Specific market research tools and methods that promote market learning are also suggested.
A Longitudinal Examination of How Champions Influence Others to Support Their Projects
Authors: Markham Stephen K. 
Published: October 2003

The image of the project champion fighting corporate inertia, rallying support, and leading a project to success makes for a great story, but that story may not reveal the true nature of the champion's role. All those oft‐told tales about champions fail to provide hard evidence of the techniques that champions use, the activities they perform, and the effects that champions have on project success.Stephen K. Markham addresses this knowledge gap in a study that examines how champions influence other people and what effects champions have on projects and the people those projects involve. The study uses responses from 53 champions of innovation projects in four large firms as well as team members from those projects. Rather than look at the champions' work on project tasks, the study focuses on the influence champions have on other people to support their projects.The results of the study only partially support the idea that champions affect projects by influencing people. In the four firms studied, champions use cooperative rather than confrontative tactics to influence other people. However, the champions' choice of influence tactics does not affect the level of compliance or the willingness to participate in the project that those people demonstrate. On the other hand, the champions appear to have a strong influence on their target's behavior if the champions enjoy positive personal relationships with those people.In general, the tactics used by the champions do not seem to play an important role in the projects studied. From the perspective of the team members, the results of this study do not support the notion that champions make a positive contribution to project performance. However, the champions in this study consistently hold a more positive view of the project than those of the team members.
Environmental Uncertainty, Organizational Integration, and New Product Development Effectiveness: A Test of Contingency Theory
Authors: Souder William E. , Sherman J. Daniel , Davies‐Cooper Rachel 
Published: October 2003

R&D/marketing integration clearly improves new‐product development (NPD) effectiveness. However, achieving this integration increases the costs of NPD efforts. If technical and market uncertainty moderate the effects of integration on NPD effectiveness, perhaps a firm can achieve NPD success in a more cost‐effective manner by seeking the appropriate level of integration, based on the perceived level of uncertainty.In a study of 101 NPD projects at high‐tech firms in the U.S. and the U.K., William E. Souder, J. Daniel Sherman, and Rachel Davies‐Cooper explore the interplay between technical and market uncertainty, integration, and NPD effectiveness. Their study examines two types of integration: R&D/marketing integration and direct R&D/customer integration. The study measures NPD effectiveness in terms of such indicators as NPD cycle time, prototype development proficiency, design change frequency (a negative performance indicator), and product launch proficiency. The responses from both the U.S. and the U.K. firms provide balanced samples of high and low uncertainty projects, as well as successful and unsuccessful projects.The results of this study support previous research regarding the positive effects of both R&D/marketing integration and direct R&D/customer integration on NPD effectiveness. However, only one measure of NPD effectiveness—R&D comercialization effectiveness—was affected by both R&D/marketing integration and direct R&D/customer integration. This result suggests that the two types of integration are distinct from one another and that managers need to emphasize different types of integration, depending on which aspects of NPD effectiveness their firms need to improve.The results also suggest that technical and market uncertainty influence some aspects of NPD effectiveness. For example, the perceived level of technical uncertainty was found to influence prototype development proficiency and to moderate design change frequency. In other words, these results support the idea that a high level of technical uncertainty warrants paying extra attention to increasing prototype development proficiency in the interest of reducing design change frequency. However, the results also reinforce the idea that NPD activities generally involve high levels of technical and market uncertainty, which means that the high cost of integration may be a requirement for NPD success.
Competitive Advantage Through Product Performance Innovation in a Competitive Market
Authors: Friar John H. 
Published: October 2003

Superior product performance does not necessarily ensure commercial success. In many industries, companies seek competitive advantage primarily through product innovation. Competition in such markets is based on claims of technological superiority. However, unless a company can clearly establish the superiority of its products in its customers' minds, a differentiation strategy based on relative product performance is likely to be ineffective. This is particularly true in markets characterized by numerous product introductions from many competitors.Product innovation success declines as the intensity of market competition increases. This may be caused by customers' inability to differentiate products on the basis of functional performance. John H. Friar tests this hypothesis by examining an industry, medical diagnostic ultrasound equipment, that is characterized by frequent product introductions from numerous companies.Technical experts from the competing manufacturers believe there are differences in the image quality of their equipment and strongly agree on the factors that distinguish better performance. In most cases, however, customers could not distinguish product performance. Ironically, in a market where everyone is competing by improving product performance, product performance innovation alone may not be enough to create meaningful differentiation.To succeed in such an environment, companies must compete on two levels. Continued emphasis on product innovation is necessary to keep pace with the competition. However, because product innovation alone is not sufficient to provide market differentiation, companies must shift their competitive thrust to other dimensions.
A Theory of Vacant Urban Land
Authors: Schenk Robert E. 
Published: October 2003

The purpose of this paper is to examine the prevalence and causes of vacant urban land. The paper is organized in four parts. The first part summarizes the available information on the extent of vacant urban land. The second section attempts to explain the existence of vacant land by using concepts often applied to labor unemployment. In part three that vacant land which the labor concepts do not explain is attacked with another tool from the economic tool box, the “optimal‐harvest‐time” solution, but this solution is found to have limited applicability. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of how the framework developed in parts two and three might be used.Central in this paper is the attempt to analyze vacant land with theories developed for unemployed labor. This procedure stems from the belief that, whenever possible, new phenomena should be attacked with old theories. Such a methodology conserves effort, for if the old and new phenomena are indeed similar, new theories may not only be unnecessary but undesirable–product differentiation has a cost. Moreover, an old theory can bring out similarities that may not be obvious at first glance, and may suggest areas that deserve more attention.
Simulating the Immune Response on a Distributed Parallel Computer
Authors: Castiglione F. , Bernaschi M. , Succi S. 
Published: October 2003

The application of ideas and methods of statistical mechanics to problems of biological relevance is one of the most promising frontiers of theoretical and computational mathematical physics.1,2 Among others, the computer simulation of the immune system dynamics stands out as one of the prominent candidates for this type of investigations. In the recent years immunological research has been drawing increasing benefits from the resort to advanced mathematical modeling on modern computers.3,4 Among others, Cellular Automata (CA), i.e., fully discrete dynamical systems evolving according to boolean laws, appear to be extremely well suited to computer simulation of biological systems.5 A prominent example of immunological CA is represented by the Celada–Seiden automaton, that has proven capable of providing several new insights into the dynamics of the immune system response. To date, the Celada–Seiden automaton was not in a position to exploit the impressive advances of computer technology, and notably parallel processing, simply because no parallel version of this automaton had been developed yet. In this paper we fill this gap and describe a parallel version of the Celada–Seiden cellular automaton aimed at simulating the dynamic response of the immune system. Details on the parallel implementation as well as performance data on the IBM SP2 parallel platform are presented and commented on.
Role of adenosine receptors in regulating chemotaxis and cytokine production of plasmacytoid dendritic cells
Authors: Schnurr Max , Toy Tracey , Shin Amanda , Hartmann Gunther , Rothenfusser Simon , Soellner Julia , Davis Ian D. , Cebon Jonathan , Maraskovsky Eugene 
Published: October 2003

AbstractPlasmacytoid dendritic cells (PDCs) are potent regulators of immune function and the major source of type I interferon (IFN) following viral infection. PDCs are found at sites of inflammation in allergic reactions, autoimmune disorders, and cancer, but the mechanisms leading to the recruitment of PDCs to these sites remain elusive. During inflammation, adenosine is released and functions as a signaling molecule via adenosine receptors. This study analyzes adenosine receptor expression and function in human PDCs. Adenosine was found to be a potent chemotactic stimulus for immature PDCs via an A1 receptor–mediated mechanism. The migratory response toward adenosine was comparable to that seen with CXCL12 (stromal-derived factor-1α [SDF-1α), the most potent chemotactic stimulus identified thus far for immature PDCs. Upon maturation, PDCs down-regulate the A1 receptor, resulting in a loss of migratory function. In contrast, mature PDCs up-regulate the A2a receptor, which is positively coupled to adenylyl cyclase and has been implicated in the down-regulation of DC cytokine-producing capacity. We show that in mature PDCs adenosine reduces interleukin-6 (IL-6), IL-12, and IFN-α production in response to CpG oligodeoxynucleotides (ODN). These findings indicate that adenosine may play a dual role in PDC-mediated immunity by initially recruiting immature PDCs to sites of inflammation and by subsequently limiting the extent of the inflammatory response induced by mature PDCs by inhibiting their cytokine-producing capacity.