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To succeed and survive in competitive markets, products need to be of the desired quality. Quality is how well the product, in its entirety, satisfies the needs of the intended customers. With products in industrial markets, there are many different types of customers to satisfy. Research has been published that is of general use to help define the New Product Development (NPD) process and the management of its activities and this was useful as a basis for this research study. However, little previous work is available that details the specific aspect of designing for customer needs compliance. An exploratory investigation, using analysis of selected cases and experience surveys, was undertaken to help direct conceptual work. A conceptual model was developed to help describe the NPD process and customer needs compliance. The hypotheses that guided the main study sought to understand the perceptions which the design team has of the product in terms of different customer needs. They also aimed to determine how information management during NPD may affect the final design and, consequently, the quality of the product. With the objective of drawing conclusions across the four companies involved in the main study, collection methods and data analysis provided quantitative results on what is essentially qualitative types of information. The findings conclude that each of the companies do perceive a difference in the needs of the customers between different product types. However, they also imply that specific types of customers have similar needs, no matter what types of products are involved. With a small set of respondents in each company, no evidence was found to suggest that the different perceptions the people involved in the design and development of the product had could be attributed to the functional, managerial or customer involvement groupings under investigation. However, there was some evidence that customer needs compliance may be affected by the way the company handled its information management during the NPD process.

Firms frequently use brand extension strategies to enter new product categories. Another type of entry strategy is co-branding by effectively exploiting the equity of both constituent brands. Co-branding may effectively drive consumer preferences if consumers believe the combination of two brands offers a better solution than either one separately. However, there is also the risk that consumers may get confused with the combination, or have perceptions of strengths regarding one of the brands diluted, leading to the failure of this strategy. While much has been written on brand-category extension, despite its prevalence, the use of co-brands to enter a new category has attracted relatively little attention. In this study, the author models the effects on consumer perceptions and preferences of combining two brand names for a new product. The proposed model provides a mechanism to represent how consumers’ prior attribute beliefs about constituent brands, the extendibility of the brands into the extension category, the compatibility between the constituent brands, and the uncertainty associated with them can jointly determine their preferences for the co-branded product. The contribution that this model enables is a means to study co-branding and new category entry simultaneously, by assessing the drivers of consumer preference for a co-brand in a new product category. An empirical study is designed to test the model, using real brands and hypothetical extensions and co-brands. Theoretical contributions and managerial implications of this study are discussed.

Abstract The workload of Verification and Validation (V&V) has increased constantly in the high technology industries. The changes in the business environment, with fast time-to-market and demands to decrease research and development costs, have increased the importance of efficient product creation process, including V&V. The significance of the V&V related know-how and testing is increasing in the high tech business environment. As a consequence, companies in the ICT sector have pressures for improving product development process and verification and validation activities. The main motive for this research arises from the fact that the research has been scarce on verification and validation from product development process perspective. This study approaches the above mentioned goal from four perspectives: current challenges and success factors, V&V maturity in different NPD phases, benchmarking automotive sector, and shifting the emphasis of NPD efforts. This dissertation is qualitative in nature and is based on interviewing experienced industrial managers, reflecting their views against scientific literature. The researcher has analysed the obtained material and made conclusions. The main implications of this doctoral dissertation can be concluded as a visible need to shift the emphasis of V&V activities to early NPD. These activities should be viewed and managed over the entire NPD process. There is a need for companies to understand the V&V maturity in different NPD phases and develop activities based on this understanding. Verification and validation activities must be seen as an integral element for successful NPD. Benchmarking other sectors may enable identifying development potential for NPD process. The automotive sector being a mature sector, has developed practices for successfully handling requirements during NPD. The role of V&V is different in different NPD phases. Set-based type V&V can provide required understanding during early product development. In addition, developing parallel technological alternatives and platforms during early NPD also support shifting the emphasis towards earlier development phases.

Abstract The main motive for this research arises from the fact that the research has been scarce on verification and validation (V&V) activities from the management viewpoint, even though V&V has been covered from the technical viewpoint. There was a clear need for studying the management aspects due to the development of the information and communications technology (ICT) sector, and increased significance of V&V activities. ICT has developed into a turbulent, high clock-speed sector and the importance of V&V activities has increased significantly. As a consequence, companies in the ICT sector require ideas for improving their verification and validation activities from the product development management viewpoint. This study approaches the above mentioned goal from four perspectives: current V&V management challenges, organisational and V&V maturities, benchmarking another sector, and uncertainty during new product development (NPD). This dissertation is qualitative in nature and is based on interviewing experienced industrial managers, reflecting their views against scientific literature. The researcher has analysed the obtained material and made conclusions. The main implications of this doctoral dissertation can be concluded as a need to overcome the current tendency to organise through functional silos, and low maturity of V&V activities. Verification and validation activities should be viewed and managed over the entire NPD process. This requires new means for cross-functional integration. The maturity of the overall management system needs to be adequate to enable higher efficiency and effectiveness of V&V activities. There are pressures to shift the emphasis of V&V to early NPD and simultaneously delay decision-making in NPD projects to a stage where enough information is available. Understanding enhancing V&V methods are a potential way to advance towards these goals.

With increasing demands from customers, companies face the challenges of shortening the new product development (NPD) period, reducing development cost and increasing development efficiency. High quality and efficiency of NPD can increase the chance for companies to be competitive on the market. Forming up cross-functional teams becomes a popular way of maximizing the knowledge then increase the development quality and efficiency. However, it is challenging to integrate the resources from different functions and even more challenging when the resources are from different countries. To overcome the integration challenges can increase the efficiency of NPD projects therefore finally win global market shares. This study’s purpose is to identify and analyze integration challenges experienced by a verification team involved in global NPD and to suggest how those challenges can be managed by answering two research questions: 1) What are the integration challenges with the current work process encountered by the global verification team? 2) How can the integration challenges be met in the improved work process? The case study is used as the research method in order to get deep insight of the challenges that a global verification team faces. VSM Group AB, an international leading sewing company is selected as the case company.  The case team, a global verification team locates both in Sweden and China, plays the role of verification work within NPD process. The case team verifies the design and new products in the process.  Through interviews, observation and literature reviews, the challenges in this global verification team are identified. It is found that the case team needs to overcome language barriers, culture difference, task planning and formalization and standardization on work performance during integration. Based on the investigations, a set of solutions are proposed in the end to meet the challenges. These solutions are an improved work process, work performance system, training program and uniformed documentation. These proposals are inspired by the integration mechanisms such as formalization and standardization, special reports etc and then fit them into the case team context. By simulation and evaluation the solutions within the global verification team, the feedback on the proposals helped for improvement. This case study at VSM is an empirical example of implementation of integration mechanisms into a real life context.

It is widely believed among researchers as well as practitioners that there is a link between new product newness, or innovativeness, and benefits to the firm developing and marketing a product; more innovative products are generally expected to create more profit and growth. However, research findings are conflicting—positive-, negative-, and no-relationship have been reported between product newness and benefits by different researchers. Moreover, most research has been confined to hardware products. Software is a different kind of product. It is marked by low industry entry barrier, low marginal cost of production, intense competition for quick market leadership, subject to increasing rate of return, et al. An ever larger part of investments in new products consist of computer software, software that is used in PCs, control industrial processes and give products like mobile phones, cameras and cars new features. To what extent newness gives benefits in software development is however still un-researched. Thus, the purpose this study was formulated as: To explore effect of newness of new software products on the benefits to the firms. To fulfill this research purpose, first we had to find out “What are the relevant elements of (i) newness, and (ii) benefits of new products” in the context of firms that develop and market computer software products? This part of the study is reported in Part I. In a second step the effect of product newness on benefits was investigated quantitatively. This part of the study is reported in Part II. Part I is based upon semi-structured in-depth interviews of managers responsible for seven new software products in firms from Finland, India, Sweden and the US. Supplementary secondary data were collected from archival sources to write case descriptions of each software product. Within- and cross-case inductive analysis of seven-case database led to identification of relevant elements of newness and benefits. As newness elements, distribution technology, and complementary technological-, and marketing-resources were found to be vital; as benefits element, non-monetary benefits of new products stood out. Part II reports a quantitative study involving 321 Swedish software firms. Data were collected through a Web-survey, using a questionnaire based on findings of Part I, and analyzed through Factor Analysis and Structural Equation Modeling. Findings indicate that marketing fit, and technological familiarity enhance product-level benefits, whereas technological fit, and familiarity enhance firm-level benefits. From the three environmental factors only aggressive marketing practices was found to be of significance. Neither switching costs nor computer mediated transactions was found to have any moderating role on product newness and new product benefits relationship. Overall, this study extends previous research in the area of product newness-new product benefits and fills the gap in the literature (i) by developing grounded measures for operationalizing new product newness and benefits concepts in the context of software product firms, and (ii) by identifying significant elements of new product newness that affect new product benefits. By limiting to a particular industry, this study provides useful findings—for both researches of new product development, and for managers in software firms—such as marketing fit, and technological familiarity enhance product-level benefits, whereas technological fit, and technological familiarity enhance firm-level benefits.

New product development quality has been found to be a key determinant of the market success and profitability of a new product because of its contribution to superior customer value, the cornerstone of a firm¡¦s competitive advantage in the marketplace. Therefore, enterprises are increasingly utilizing new product development teams for new product development. Previous studies have suggested that the diverse backgrounds of cross-functional team members can increase the amount and variety of information available to design products, thereby improving design process efficiency and product development performance. However, researchers still know very little about how such teams can improve new product quality. Thus, our first research question was; what are the relationships between team characteristics and organization contextual factors and new product quality? In addition, as nationality has been shown to influence individual¡¦s cognitive schema, values, and nonverbal behavior, all of which influence behavior in teams, new product development teams pose a particular type of challenge in different countries. Team-based work designs have been easier to implement in countries with collectivist as opposed to individualist cultures. To address that issue, this study will examine the differences of how team characteristics and contextual influences affect new product quality in collectivist and individualist cultures. Thus, our second research question was; do team characteristics and organization contextual factors affect new product quality differently in collectivist cultures and individualist cultures? Because this was a cross-national research, samples were taken from two countries, one in Taiwan and the other in the U.S.A. We received 184 completed questionnaires from Taiwanese teams, and 176 completed questionnaires from American teams. In order to make sure that the instrument used in this study could measure what it was intended to measure, we used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to examine the validity of the measurement models of both dependent variables and independent variables. We then used hierarchical moderated regression analysis to test the contingency hypotheses. Research results reveal two different outcomes of hypotheses testing. For Taiwanese teams, new product quality is positively affected by the capability of information integration in the team and quality orientation in the firm, but is negatively influenced by speed-to-market pressure and product innovativeness in the firm. Functional and tenure diversity have a moderate no effect on new product quality. The capability of information integration in a team can also reduce the negative effect of speed-to-market pressure on new product quality. In contrast, for American teams, new product quality is positively affected by functional diversity and the capability of information integration in the team and quality orientation in the firm, but is moderately negatively influenced by supplier involvement in the firm. Customer involvement in a firm can increase the positive effect of the capability of information integration on new product quality. In conclusion, the present study contributes to the literature on new product development teams in several ways. First, it extends research on new product development teams across collectivist and individualist cultures and identifies boundary conditions for theories of new product development teams. Second, this study is the first to empirically examine how team characteristics and organization contextual factors affect new product quality across cultures. Third, it provides a thorough and integrative review of the literature from diverse disciplines such as new product development, organizational behavior, and management and innovation as a means of establishing links among team characteristics, organization contextual factors, and new product quality. Finally, the model we have provided will assist managers in identifying the team characteristics and organization contextual factors needed to assist new product development teams in collectivist and individualist cultures to develop high-quality products. Since these factors can be directly manipulated by managers, they can create the effective conditions, specific to the industry characteristics they are engaged in, for new product development teams to develop high-quality products.

Recent years have witnessed a growing concern for the ability of firms to effectively manage their new product innovation in the face of disruptive technological changes, increased global competition, and rising costs of research and development. These concerns notwithstanding, firms are additionally required to launch radical new products to the market, as incremental new products provide their developers with only short-term sales and profitability. In response to these challenges, firms have entered into collaborative alliances to share the risks and costs involved in the new product development (NPD) process and to enhance their product innovation performance. Turning research discoveries into marketable radical new products through collaborative alliances is even more important for relatively small firms operating in technologically intensive industries. Such firms are often underfunded and unable to undertake a full NPD cycle internally due to an inability of assembling the right mix of internal capabilities. The inevitable need to access capabilities from alliance partners may lead some small firms to form collaborative alliances under unfavourable situations, which make alliances prone to failure (70% by some estimates) to reach new product innovation goals. The substantial rate of alliance failure is embedded in a clash between the logic of radical new product innovation management (the need for flexibility between alliance partners), and recommendations for alliance management (the need to determine the responsibilities of each partner from the onset of the alliance). Despite the benefits of alliances in providing required resources, alliances can impose substantial transaction costs to focal small firms. Thus, it is crucial to investigate how firms, particularly small firms, can make a balance between the benefits and costs involved in alliances, to mitigate alliance risks and increase the probability of new product radicalness. In this thesis, I introduce a new typology and demonstrate its application to product performance. The typology categorizes alliance partnerships along two dimensions of partnership timing (the stage of the NPD process during which alliance is formed) and partnership type (the role of alliance partner during the NPD process). I use this this typology to determine the interaction effects of partnership timing and type on the probability of product innovativeness (radicalness). To this end, I rely on insights from Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) and Resource Based View of the firm (RBV) theories as well as the absorptive capacity concept to develop testable hypotheses. I use a sample of 230 drugs developed by 85 biotechnology firms in collaborative alliances with 384 alliances in 1982-2016 with universities and research institutes, other biotechnology firms, and pharmaceutical firms formed during discovery, development, and prelaunch stages of the new drug development process. I find that the probability of drug radicalness increases when alliances with universities and research institutes, as well as other biotech firms, are formed during the discovery or development stages of the new drug development. However, results indicate that partnership with pharma firms during the discovery or development stages reduces the likelihood of drug radicalness. During the prelaunch stage, except for negative relation between alliances with other biotech and drug radicalness, results failed to find a significant relationship between university as well as pharmaceutical partnership and drug radicalness. By disintegrating alliances along two dimensions of partnership type and timing, this thesis substantially increases the understanding of the benefits and costs of each partnership type and during each stage of the NPD process. This helps relatively small firms to better understand when and with whom during the process of NPD they need to initiate alliances to increase their likelihood of product radicalness. This thesis also contributes to the current theoretical insights of TCE and RBV theories by considering costs and benefits of each partnership type variant along different stages of the NPD process. Methodologically, instead of focusing on analysis using firm level outcome variables (count number of new products), this thesis turns the unit of analysis to product level (innovativeness of the product) and links each product to its designated alliance attributes (timing and type) to provide more subtle and fine-grained implications. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

In today’s constantly changing environment globalization offers opportunities as well as threats to manufacturing companies. One trend in industry is that to meet customer demands and global competition, manufacturing companies need to frequently introduce new products to the market at the right time and cost. Another trend is that manufacturing companies relocate their production sites abroad. Therefore, in this thesis the context is global development projects, which includes both new product development and production relocation projects. The global dimension implies that team members are located in different countries. Integration between team members, which in this thesis refers to interaction processes involving information exchange on the one hand and collaboration or cooperation on the other, is therefore a challenge. Even if much research exists with regard to integration, integration across national borders in global development projects has not been addressed to a greater extent. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to expand the analysis of integration in global development projects in order to gain insights regarding the use of different integration mechanisms. The thesis specifically addresses the influence of national cultural and linguistic differences on integration as well as the use of various integration mechanisms. The results originate from one longitudinal case study of a global new product development project and two retrospective case studies including global new product development and production relocation projects. In general, it is concluded that in global development projects national cultural and linguistic differences amplify integration difficulties among project team members who belong to different functions. The comparison of the three global development projects indicated that some of the integration mechanisms worked and were used to integrate team members from different functions, while others did not work as intended. Therefore, this thesis argues that there is a need for a diverse set of integration mechanisms that depend on the context of a global development project and specifically on national cultural and linguistic differences.