In this issue's second paper, Kim Schatzel, Roger Calantone and Cornelia Droge investigate firms' differential propensities to preannounce new product introductions versus new product withdrawals or delays. Using data from 265 respondents, the authors examine the antecedent effects of organizational, environmental and buyer behavior effects on the probability of using each of the two kinds of preannouncements. The findings suggest that the antecedents for preannouncements of both types operate in similar ways, and that they arise from all three hypothesized dimensions of antecedents. Derrick Boone, Kate Lemon and Rick Staelin then experimentally investigate whether a consumer will immediately purchase a new, technologically advanced product, or will delay until a future product is released in the context of the past stream of new product introductions the firm has commercialized. While a number of researchers have investigated whether consumers will delay adoption in the past, the new insight from this research is that the pattern of introductions matters.
Consumers do seem to use past patterns to forecast forward as to when to repurchase.
The final article in this issue returns to the research stream of managing new product teams. The authors find that firms perceive that global teams are more difficult to manage, face greater behavioral and product management challenges, and are likely to have a lower perceived success outcome. As always, you can find a useful set of book reviews prepared by Beebe Nelson and Ken Kahn, and abstracts of other articles on new product development, prepared by Tony Di Benedetto after the journal articles. We hope you find these useful. All Rights Reserved.