Abstract Nonaka and Takeuchi¡¦s book ¡§The Knowledge Creating Company. ¡¨ crystallized the intricacy of knowledge management and its importance in the organization¡¦s long- term success and survival. However, the lack of empirical work in this area has not advanced our understanding of this important phenomenon. Previous studies have focused on limited aspects of the overall knowledge management process. As a result, our understanding of knowledge management is limited to certain micro-level aspects, rather understanding the whole process. This research creatively employs Knowledge Value Chain model as a knowledge management framework. How to enrich knowledge management to promote innovation and develop new product is one of the most important issue to business competition. This research will study the impact of knowledge management to the performance of new product development activities. The ability of technological resource management and industrial technological competitive intensity are the two factors which will be consider as interfacial variables in the research design. Follow by questionnaire survey, statistic analysis is used to test several hypotheses. Finally, a knowledge management procedure will be proposed. We expect the results of this study will not only help us to understand the theoretical implication but also the implement procedure.

In Taiwan, ¡§ networks for development of new products¡¨, a method normally used in the Bicycle's industry, which the method includes not only the efforts from internal personnel's participation in developing new products but also innovations obtained by mutually-contributed thinking with external sources. Due to this mutual ways of thinking is fast and concentrated, the final results of the new product are usually uncertain so that such unfavorable factors like unsatisfied production in the brand-marketed company, bicycle manufacturer, and part manufacturer, hoard of inventories, changes of design, changes of manufacturing process...etc directly influenced on the efficiency of the whole industry. However, the whole industry still position to be very competitive in the world. It is believed that with the installment of B- to- B e-commerce, those unfavorable factors might be reduced and the whole industry could be even more competitive. Also by this installment, the operation of the companies will dramatically changes, which the competition within the industry become much complicated and have direct impulses to the leading industry of bicycle manufacturing.

This resreach discusses how the organization knowledge establishes itself in different steps during the process of developing a new product. The four crucial force (including technology push¡Bmarket pull¡Bfocus strategy¡Bcompetitive advantage) which affects the development of a new product function basing on the fundemental models of Leonard-Barton (1995) and the four models of Nonaka(1994). The force will interact with one another and create the spiraling of the organization knowledge. The research chooses a leading transportation manufacturer as the study case. The four steps of developing its new product are integrated into an individual case. The organization knowledge is accumulated, communicated, applied, integraged, and innovated while executing the business, applying the resource of technology, being inspired by the culture of the enterprise, as well as cooporateing with the other companies. We learned from the research that we need to understand the mechanics of the organization knowledge and to know how to apply the agent of the knowledge if we need the knowledge to be fast and unexhausted. We are to create the four force of a new product, as well as the mechanics of selecting the organization knowledge and the right direction to which the knowledge will guide us. The organization base cooperates with the execution of business, and each individual takes his or her part in the case. Thus the personal and the social knowledge can be combined and carried out effectively and established into systematic graph via socializaiton, internalization, externalization,combination. Therefore, the model of creating the organization knowledge of enterprise is formed step by step. The organization knowledge can be the core potencial and asset of the enterprise, and it will be advantage while competing with other enterprises. As for the new product, it is the full presentation of the organization knowledge of an enterprice.

The process of innovation remains challenging for companies in general and for small firms in particular. Limited resources constitute an obstacle on the small firm’s path towards market launch and the need for supportive measures is evident. Today, as the technology is developing at an exponential speed, the time-to-market shortens, underlining that the innovation challenge of small firms is an urgent matter. Given the limited resources of the small firms, this thesis defines the access to external competence as well as an established new product development process as crucial factors for successful innovation. Providing these necessary functions, a public intermediary, originating from policies, is considered a viable solution. The contribution of this thesis lies in investigating whether or not a private intermediary, not supported by policies, can provide the same functions as a public intermediary. In addition, the thesis expands the knowledge about the intermediary functions present in the innovation process by relating them to specific phases in a generalized new product development process. The results in this thesis are qualitative, based on a profound literary study as well as a comparative case study, examining two diverse kinds of intermediaries in a micro perspective. The first case is a public intermediary, operating with a strong business focus, as its mission is to economically strengthen the Swedish industry. The second case presents a technology based consultancy firm, acting as a private intermediary and centered on questions related to R&D. Applying Howells’ (2006) intermediation functions to the two diverse cases, a comparative study of their offered functions has been performed. The micro perspective study has proved the acknowledged intermediation functions to be applicable to specific phases in a generalized new product development process. As several functions appear in multiple phases of the new product development process, the generalized process is observed to be iterative. This notion questions previous definitions of the intermediation functions during an innovation process, as the processes have been simplified as linear in prior research. Using the generalized new product development process as framework for a comparative analysis, it has been concluded that the private intermediary can provide the same functions as the public intermediary. In extension, the private intermediary is able to offer additional services, not legally permitted for the public intermediary, such as selecting external actors and negotiating agreements. As the private intermediary can provide an extended assortment of functions, while not being dependent on government funding, the question of whether or not the public intermediary still fills a necessary function has been raised. However, additional values, such as objectivity and a non-profit-interest have been linked to the public intermediary. As these attributes are valuable to the small firm, further studies on the support not incorporated in the investigated functions are needed.

The aim of Master thesis is to cover the main aspects of introducing the new product for the market and to use them while making the research of UAB „Mažoji rūtelė“ opportunities to enter the market with its new product. Analytical part of final paper covers the analysis of Lithuanian and foreign authors’ scientific literature according to the topics of innovations, new products’ development and implementation. The second part of the work includes the analysis of the research on customers behavior concerning confectionary made. Third part or the thesis covers the evaluation of the performance of UAB “Mažoji rūtelė” on the feasibility of adaptation. It consists of the review of the company’ performance, the internal and external environment. The evaluation of the potential demand was made based on both – qualitative and quantitative aspects.

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