Gaining a competitive edge in today's turbulent business environment calls for a commitment by firms to two highly interrelated strategies: globalization and new product development (NPD). Although much research has focused on how companies achieve NPD success, little of this deals with NPD in the global setting. The authors use resource-based theory (RBT)-a model emphasizing the resources and capabilities of the firm as primary determinants of competitive advantage-to explain how companies involved in international NPD realize superior performance. The capabilities RBT model is used to test how firms achieve superior performance by deploying organizational capabilities to take advantage of key organizational resources relevant for developing new products for global markets. Specifically, the study evaluates (1) organizational NPD resources (i.e., the firm's global innovation culture, attitude to resource commitment, top-management involvement, and NPD process formality); (2) NPD process capabilities or routines for identifying and exploiting new product opportunities (i.e., global knowledge integration, NPD homework activities, and launch preparation); and (3) global NPD program performance. Based on data from 387 global NPD programs (North America and Europe, business-to-business), a structural model testing for the hypothesized mediation effects of NPD process capabilities on organizational NPD resources was largely supported. The findings indicate that all four resources considered relevant for effective deployment of global NPD process capabilities play a significant role. Specifically, a positive attitude toward resource commitment as well as NPD process formality is essential for the effective deployment of the three NPD process routines linked to achieving superior global NPD program performance; a strong global innovation culture is needed for ensuring effective global knowledge integration; and top-management involvement plays a key role in deploying both knowledge integration and launch preparation. Of the three NPD process capabilities, global knowledge integration is the most important, whereas homework and launch preparation also play a significant role in bringing about global NPD program success. Tests for partial mediation suggest that too much process formality may be negative and that top-management involvement requires careful focus.

In several industries, new products are very similar in functional features but compete on their unique design. Firms like Alessi, Apple, Bang & Olufsen, Dyson, or Kartell all follow a design-driven innovation approach and use their products' visual appearance as the main mean for differentiation. In spite of this, design newness is never discussed among the dimensions of product innovativeness. Instead, conceptualizations of product innovativeness mostly focus on a product's technical newness or the changes it implies for the innovating firm or for the market it enters. This paper seeks to build an argument for why design newness should be considered as a dimension of product innovativeness. In addition to providing conceptual rationale, empirical evidence is offered on the influence of design newness on sales performance across a product's life cycle. To be able to put the findings into perspective, the performance effects of design newness are compared with those of technical newness. As several products exemplify that design newness and technical newness can go hand in hand, not only direct performance effects but also interaction effects between both newness dimensions are investigated. The arguments are tested on a sample of 157 new cars launched between 1978 and 2006 in Germany. The automobile industry is selected because of the strategic role of both technical and design aspects in product innovation. Putting a focus on this industry also has the advantage that historical information on car specifics and objective sales data over time are accessible. The results emphasize that both design and technical newness are important drivers of car sales. However, the effects differ widely across the product life cycle. While design newness has a positive impact right after the introduction and persists in strength over time, technical newness drives sales with a lagged effect and decreases toward the end of the life cycle. The test of a combined influence of design newness and technical newness on sales performance produces no significant results. These results open interesting avenues for future research on product innovativeness in general and design newness in particular. For management practice, the findings emphasize the importance of overall product innovativeness, clarify the different performance effects of design and technical newness across the product life cycle, and show the value of creating a unique visual product appearance to positively trigger product diffusion.

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A firm's strategic innovation orientation, which is aimed at discovering and satisfying emerging customer needs with novel technological solutions, has repeatedly been shown to be crucial for firm innovativeness and firm performance. Despite its apparent importance, relatively little research has addressed antecedents of a firm's strategic orientation that help explain heterogeneity in innovation strategies across firms. Especially the influence of top management teams (TMT) should be critical, since innovation strategies are shaped at the top management level. Building on the theory of upper echelon, this study investigates how TMT characteristics affect a firm's strategic innovation orientation, and how this relates to innovation outcomes and firm performance. Hypotheses are tested on a sample of goods manufacturers using a combination of survey data, document analysis, and objective capital market data for firm performance. Results indicate that TMT diversity, measured as heterogeneity in educational, functional, industry, and organizational background, has a strong positive effect on a firm's innovation orientation. A strong proactive focus on emerging customer needs and on novel technologies then lead to a portfolio of new products with higher market newness and technology newness, which both increase firm performance. The results therefore emphasize the importance of TMT characteristics as antecedent for innovation strategy and innovation outcomes.

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of planning and control on the performance of new product development (NPD) projects. It is hypothesized that (1) thorough business planning at the beginning of a project creates a basis for proficient project and risk planning; (2) the proficiency of project planning, risk planning, and process management activities each improves innovation performance directly; (3) the relationship of planning and success is mediated by process management; and (4) the strength of these relationships is moderated by uncertainty, as determined by the degree of innovativeness. To test the hypotheses, data from 132 NPD projects were collected and analyzed. A measurement model was used to establish valid and reliable constructs, a path model to test the main effects, and a multiple-moderated regression analysis for the moderator hypotheses. The results suggest that the proficiency of project planning and process management is important predictors of NPD performance. Specifically, project risk planning and goal stability throughout the development process are found to enhance performance significantly. Business planning proves to be an important antecedent of the more development-related planning activities such as project planning and risk planning. Additionally, the results lend support to the hypotheses regarding the mediating role of process management in the planning-performance relationship. Project planning and risk planning support the quality of process management and thus impact NPD performance indirectly. Only to a limited extent are the strengths of these relationships moderated by the degree of innovativeness of the NPD project.