Causal complexity of new product development processes: a mechanism-based approach

Abstract

The outcomes of new product development (NPD) processes are dependent on the interplay of several interdependent activities. One product development activity can be dependent on the presence or absence of other activities, different kinds of NDP processes may lead to the same outcome, and specific kinds of activities may have a positive effect in one process but no effect in other processes. However, we currently lack means to examine and explain this causal complexity inherent in NPD processes. To address this issue, we introduce mechanism-based approach as a way to capture conjunctural and equifinal causal relations. We build this approach on the philosophical literature on mechanism-based explanations and the methodological opportunities provided by the qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to identify how the activities of entities are configured together to generate outcomes. We elaborate this approach by presenting an in-depth historical analysis of the NPD projects of Vaisala, a meteorological instrument company. We discover and suggest that the company's NPD projects were driven by three mechanisms (ideation, evaluation and commercialisation) and that each of them were actualised by a set of different activity configurations. Accordingly, we contribute to the NPD and innovation literature by showing how mechanism-based explanations take into account both the abstract theorisation of NPD processes and their inherent causal complexity.

How experts screen ideas: The complex interplay of intuition, analysis and sensemaking

“…The main advantage of fsQCA is that it enables the researcher to account for causal complexity between the conditions and the outcome. Specifically, it assumes conjunctural causation (outcomes rarely have a single cause), equifinality (there are multiple paths to an outcome), and causal asymmetry (a condition may be causally related to the outcome in one configuration but unrelated in another) (Misangyi et al, 2017; Ordanini et al, 2014; Sihvonen & Pajunen, 2019). According to Sukhov and colleagues (2018), these characteristics make fsQCA a suitable method for understanding idea screening since they enable the researcher to capture how idea screening activities are combined, what ways there are of making judgments, and how the different activities interact with the outcome.…”

“…The final step of the sufficiency analysis involved the use of Boolean algebra to simplify configurations so that they would cover a larger set of cases, while maintaining their empirical relevance (see Fahey and Simi, 2019). This simplification of configurations was done jointly with a qualitative analysis of the cases (see Greckhamer et al, 2018;Ragin, 2008;Schneider and Wagemann, 2012), in order to develop explanations for the underlying processes (De Meur, Rihoux, and Yamasaki, 2009; also Sihvonen and Pajunen, 2019). In practice, this means that the configurations leading to high idea quality can be further simplified if they can be considered redundant.…”

That Makes Sense to Me: Openness to Change and Sensemaking in Idea Screening

“…(1) conjunctural causation, which means that outcomes are caused by multiple interdependent conditions, (2) causal asymmetry, which means that the effect of a single condition is determined by the configurations it is part of, and (3) equifinality, which means that an outcome can be generated by multiple different configurations (Misangyi et al, 2017;Sihvonen and Pajunen, 2018). This captures how individuals combine together different cues when making sense, that these configurations of cues should be understood as wholes, and that there are multiple simultaneous ways to make sense of a single idea.…”

“…To further account for causal asymmetry (Misangyi et al, 2017;Sihvonen and Pajunen, 2018) we searched for configurations that led to low holistic idea quality. The results showed three configurations with a distinction between open to change versus conservative experts.…”

The Long and Winding Road: Building Legitimacy for Complex Social Innovation in Networks

“…This inductive analysis revealed two dominant social NSC legitimation mechanisms: conflicting tensions and role promotion. By engaging with the literature to sharpen the theoretical logic of relationships between constructs (Barley and Tolbert, ; Sihvonen and Pajunen, ; Van de Ven and Poole, 1995), a process model for establishing different types of social NSC legitimacy was developed.…”