The Learning Zone in New Product Development

Abstract

New information is the fuel that allows organizations to innovate. Yet the generation of new information may yield little benefit if existing practices prevent the firm from integrating new insights effectively. This study provides evidence that existing knowledge has both an enhancement effect that improves the firm's ability to benefit from new information, and an inhibition effect that lowers its motivation to learn. Firms that utilize a moderate level of existing knowledge benefit from new information more than firms that rely too little or too much upon existing knowledge. We call this optimal circumstance the "learning zone". Furthermore, we find that the moderating effects of existing knowledge are stronger for new products of lower novelty that provide a similar learning context. In addition, as novelty increases, the prominence of the enhancement effect increases, whereas the inhibition effect becomes less prevalent. Highly novel products that are able to utilize existing knowledge are therefore most likely to benefit from new information. Existing technical knowledge is also found to inhibit the use of new information to a greater degree than market knowledge. The findings suggest that organizations should evaluate their reliance on existing knowledge and create a learning zone that provides the best condition for innovation.

The Cost of Learning from Failures and Mistakes in Product Design: Reviewing the Literature

“…Therefore, we can say that knowledge acquisition is an essential part of the learning process in which the appropriate knowledge is acquired and processed. Cui et al (2014) propose that new information generated during the NPD process is a source of learning. They identify this information acquisition as the learning zone in NPD.…”

“…The corporate world primarily uses the term "learning" from an organisational perspective (Senge 1991). There is also a trend in the academic community to study learning in connection to NPD (Lynn et al, 1996, Lynn et al, 2003, Akgün et al, 2006, Cui et al, 2014, Un and Rodríguez 2018. We take the definition of learning as "processes of information or knowledge acquisition, distribution, interpretation and storage" (Schulze et al, 2013).…”

New product advantage infused by modularity: Do resources make a difference?

“…As this table shows, most extant research emphasizes the direct positive influence of resources, signaling to operational‐level managers that better project outcomes rely on more resources. Although these valuable insights help understand the crucial roles of resources in innovation (e.g., Arnold et al, 2011; Cui et al, 2014), it is undetermined whether resources orchestration in different stages promote or constrain the impacts of modularity. Following this logic, we expect resources in NPD to act as potential contingency factors and intervene in the effects of product modularity and process modularity on new product advantage.…”

“…At marketing stages NPD teams use resources to acquire intelligence of customer needs, market competition, and industry environment, so as to generate the idea, design product, and test the product (Cooper, 2019; Droge et al, 2008; Griffin et al, 2013). On the other hand, at technical stages resources are used for assessing and building product specifications and testing product prototypes (Cui et al, 2014; Dodgson et al, 2006). In practice, some modular products quickly failed in the marketplace due to unsuccessful resource allocations to marketing or technical stages, such as Google Glass (Swoboda, 2020), Nike's Fuel Band (Statt, 2014), and Kanoa's wireless headphones (Morris, 2017).…”

Metodologia de aprendizagem por riscos: uma simulação para projetos de inovação

“…Como resultado dessa metodologia, o conhecimento existente a respeito do projeto pode ser sistematizado. Foram reduzidos os riscos à medida que se gerou e agregou conhecimento, na medida certa, para o desenvolvimento da inovação (CUI;CHAN;CALANTONE, 2014). Seguindo argumento similar, Rice, O'Connor e Pierantozzi (2008) concluíram que práticas de GRIS orientadas à aprendizagem facilitam o sucesso, mesmo quando se trata de inovações radicais.…”