This thesis reports on the associations between a variety of factors related to the adoption and ... more This thesis reports on the associations between a variety of factors related to the adoption and use of 76 well-known new product development (NPD) tools on NPD performance at the project level in small high technology firms. The specific factors of interest are determinants of tool adoption, tool diffusion, thoroughness of use, flexibility of use, tool adaptation, user familiarity with tools, and tool satisfaction. An invitation-only online survey was administered to 99 organisations fitting the criteria of this study to determine patterns of tool adoption and use. A variety of inferential statistical techniques was used to analyse the data. The results show lesser tool adoption patterns in comparison with larger firms elsewhere, with the majority of tools not used to their full potential. It furthermore provides useful insights into usage and performance attributes of tools, individually and collectively. Of significance is that a greater uptake of tools may not necessarily lead t...
PurposeThe purpose of this practitioner paper is to explore whether the principles of Design Thin... more PurposeThe purpose of this practitioner paper is to explore whether the principles of Design Thinking and the Lean Startup could be employed in developing a disruptive model for delivering educational programs within higher education in a way that attempts to eliminate the multitude of problems facing this industry, while simultaneously adhering to the principles of frugal innovation and meeting relevant sustainability goals.Design/methodology/approachThe authors followed a design thinking approach, employing tools such as empathy mapping, customer journey, value proposition and semi-structured interviews to obtain a deep level of understanding of the problems educators and students within the context of entrepreneurship education are facing. Throughout the process they drew on the practice of emergent inquiry and customer co-creation to help guide decision making.FindingsThe authors successfully derived a conceptual solution in the form of a Minimum Viable Product of which the feat...
The paper addresses research issues in new product development (NPD) activity, practices and tool... more The paper addresses research issues in new product development (NPD) activity, practices and tools, in particular the need to integrate the set of tools practitioners use with the praxis of how they use these tools in day-to-day activity. It draws on the strategy-as-practice literature to derive a model that integrates the concepts of NPD practices, practitioners and praxis. It then draws on a systematic review and synthesis of existing NPD literature to develop a generic multi-stage, 12-perspective organizing framework for NPD activity, and provides examples from the literature of twelve corresponding classes of NPD tools. The literature currently lacks such a framework and hence uses individually defined schemes, resulting in a fragmented and incomplete picture. We have designed our generic framework so that it can both integrate existing findings and stimulate research that overcomes this fragmentation. We use the framework and our model of NPD practitioners, practices and projec...
International Journal of Innovation Management, 2018
This paper draws on survey data to clarify whether small high-technology firms benefit most from ... more This paper draws on survey data to clarify whether small high-technology firms benefit most from adopting greater numbers of new product development (NPD) tools to support NPD projects, or from using tools more thoroughly. This is an important issue given that small firms adopt NPD tools despite facing acute resource limitations and using informal processes. Prior studies of the performance impact of NPD tools have focused on large firms, and very few have assessed the performance impact of using NPD tools to higher levels of thoroughness.The paper covers tools across functional/technical and management/marketing aspects of NPD, and measures performance in process, product and market. We found that increasing the number of tools adopted did not measurably improve performance, in contrast to prior findings in larger firms. Instead, we found that firms obtained meaningfully improved NPD performance from using tools at higher average levels of thoroughness. Higher average thoroughness ...
International Journal of Innovation Management, 2016
Recognising the greater variety and sophistication of product innovation strategies to target exi... more Recognising the greater variety and sophistication of product innovation strategies to target existing and previously untapped markets, the author presents an extended version of the Ansoff product-market expansion grid that highlights the different approaches for developed world and emerging markets. The proposed model consists of seven distinct categories of growth options and depicts alternative strategic possibilities within each category, where appropriate. Categories that are new to the matrix include resource-constrained innovation, necessity innovation and reverse innovation. Necessity innovation is a new concept and a special case of user-innovation, defined as innovation by resource-constrained consumers in emerging markets to serve their own unmet needs. Utilising recent industry examples from a variety of media, the author demonstrates the traits of each strategic approach to grow revenue streams through product-market innovation.
In this paper, we set out the drivers and patterns of adoption of new product development (NPD) t... more In this paper, we set out the drivers and patterns of adoption of new product development (NPD) tools in small high-technology firms. Despite previous findings that using NPD tools can improve NPD performance outcomes, surveys of large firms show reluctance to make full use of such tools. Our study is the first to look at NPD tool adoption in small high-technology firms. We draw on survey data from 99 firms in New Zealand, covering 76 NPD tools, including both functional and support tools, and tools from nontechnical aspects of NPD, such as the market perspective. The firms in our sample adopted fewer tools overall than studies report for larger firms, and fewer complex tools, but adopted just as many simple tools such as brainstorming, competitor analysis, project management, and alpha prototype. The firms typically did not have formalized NPD processes, but those that did also adopted more NPD tools. We found no significant differences in tool adoption by the level of project novelty to the firm or between industrial and consumer products. We conclude by discussing the case for small firms to formalize their NPD processes and to adopt a greater number and range of NPD tools.
International Journal of Innovation Management, 2012
Despite the attention it gives to innovation tools, the product innovation literature does not ad... more Despite the attention it gives to innovation tools, the product innovation literature does not address the behavioural motivation behind practitioners' adoption of particular tools, or relate this to new venture development. This paper focuses on technology-based new ventures executing their first projects and presents insights into how their innovation tool adoption evolves over time. The paper synthesises case study findings into a hierarchy of tool adoption states encapsulating how new venture teams started with an exclusive focus on effectiveness, and over time progressively attended to problem solving, efficiency, and finally resource management. They often progressed to the next state only in response to costly mistakes and delays, whereas the experienced team in our comparison well-established firm operated within all four states from project initiation. Knowledge of this hierarchy of tool adoption states could help new venture teams to optimise the time they invest in pr...
International Journal of Innovation Management, 2013
In this paper, we present a qualitative, interview-based study of the processes small technology-... more In this paper, we present a qualitative, interview-based study of the processes small technology-based firms go through when they adopt tools and adapt them for use. By extracting 59 instances of tool internalisation across five firms, we derived a coding scheme combining existing and emergent forms of tool bricolage. The four types are reconstruction, reinterpretation, evolution, and customisation. We articulate examples of each type. Our findings reinforce the variability of any given tool once enacted in practice, contrary to implied expectations in some innovation tools literature that tool application is a straightforward mechanical process. In the small firms in our study, we found reinterpretation is the most prevalent form of tool adaptation. This type of tool use is prone to being superficial and failing to gain the benefits available from a more carefully customised or reconstructed tool. We also report on the different ways in which practitioners gain awareness of new tools.
This thesis reports on the associations between a variety of factors related to the adoption and ... more This thesis reports on the associations between a variety of factors related to the adoption and use of 76 well-known new product development (NPD) tools on NPD performance at the project level in small high technology firms. The specific factors of interest are determinants of tool adoption, tool diffusion, thoroughness of use, flexibility of use, tool adaptation, user familiarity with tools, and tool satisfaction. An invitation-only online survey was administered to 99 organisations fitting the criteria of this study to determine patterns of tool adoption and use. A variety of inferential statistical techniques was used to analyse the data. The results show lesser tool adoption patterns in comparison with larger firms elsewhere, with the majority of tools not used to their full potential. It furthermore provides useful insights into usage and performance attributes of tools, individually and collectively. Of significance is that a greater uptake of tools may not necessarily lead t...
PurposeThe purpose of this practitioner paper is to explore whether the principles of Design Thin... more PurposeThe purpose of this practitioner paper is to explore whether the principles of Design Thinking and the Lean Startup could be employed in developing a disruptive model for delivering educational programs within higher education in a way that attempts to eliminate the multitude of problems facing this industry, while simultaneously adhering to the principles of frugal innovation and meeting relevant sustainability goals.Design/methodology/approachThe authors followed a design thinking approach, employing tools such as empathy mapping, customer journey, value proposition and semi-structured interviews to obtain a deep level of understanding of the problems educators and students within the context of entrepreneurship education are facing. Throughout the process they drew on the practice of emergent inquiry and customer co-creation to help guide decision making.FindingsThe authors successfully derived a conceptual solution in the form of a Minimum Viable Product of which the feat...
The paper addresses research issues in new product development (NPD) activity, practices and tool... more The paper addresses research issues in new product development (NPD) activity, practices and tools, in particular the need to integrate the set of tools practitioners use with the praxis of how they use these tools in day-to-day activity. It draws on the strategy-as-practice literature to derive a model that integrates the concepts of NPD practices, practitioners and praxis. It then draws on a systematic review and synthesis of existing NPD literature to develop a generic multi-stage, 12-perspective organizing framework for NPD activity, and provides examples from the literature of twelve corresponding classes of NPD tools. The literature currently lacks such a framework and hence uses individually defined schemes, resulting in a fragmented and incomplete picture. We have designed our generic framework so that it can both integrate existing findings and stimulate research that overcomes this fragmentation. We use the framework and our model of NPD practitioners, practices and projec...
International Journal of Innovation Management, 2018
This paper draws on survey data to clarify whether small high-technology firms benefit most from ... more This paper draws on survey data to clarify whether small high-technology firms benefit most from adopting greater numbers of new product development (NPD) tools to support NPD projects, or from using tools more thoroughly. This is an important issue given that small firms adopt NPD tools despite facing acute resource limitations and using informal processes. Prior studies of the performance impact of NPD tools have focused on large firms, and very few have assessed the performance impact of using NPD tools to higher levels of thoroughness.The paper covers tools across functional/technical and management/marketing aspects of NPD, and measures performance in process, product and market. We found that increasing the number of tools adopted did not measurably improve performance, in contrast to prior findings in larger firms. Instead, we found that firms obtained meaningfully improved NPD performance from using tools at higher average levels of thoroughness. Higher average thoroughness ...
International Journal of Innovation Management, 2016
Recognising the greater variety and sophistication of product innovation strategies to target exi... more Recognising the greater variety and sophistication of product innovation strategies to target existing and previously untapped markets, the author presents an extended version of the Ansoff product-market expansion grid that highlights the different approaches for developed world and emerging markets. The proposed model consists of seven distinct categories of growth options and depicts alternative strategic possibilities within each category, where appropriate. Categories that are new to the matrix include resource-constrained innovation, necessity innovation and reverse innovation. Necessity innovation is a new concept and a special case of user-innovation, defined as innovation by resource-constrained consumers in emerging markets to serve their own unmet needs. Utilising recent industry examples from a variety of media, the author demonstrates the traits of each strategic approach to grow revenue streams through product-market innovation.
In this paper, we set out the drivers and patterns of adoption of new product development (NPD) t... more In this paper, we set out the drivers and patterns of adoption of new product development (NPD) tools in small high-technology firms. Despite previous findings that using NPD tools can improve NPD performance outcomes, surveys of large firms show reluctance to make full use of such tools. Our study is the first to look at NPD tool adoption in small high-technology firms. We draw on survey data from 99 firms in New Zealand, covering 76 NPD tools, including both functional and support tools, and tools from nontechnical aspects of NPD, such as the market perspective. The firms in our sample adopted fewer tools overall than studies report for larger firms, and fewer complex tools, but adopted just as many simple tools such as brainstorming, competitor analysis, project management, and alpha prototype. The firms typically did not have formalized NPD processes, but those that did also adopted more NPD tools. We found no significant differences in tool adoption by the level of project novelty to the firm or between industrial and consumer products. We conclude by discussing the case for small firms to formalize their NPD processes and to adopt a greater number and range of NPD tools.
International Journal of Innovation Management, 2012
Despite the attention it gives to innovation tools, the product innovation literature does not ad... more Despite the attention it gives to innovation tools, the product innovation literature does not address the behavioural motivation behind practitioners' adoption of particular tools, or relate this to new venture development. This paper focuses on technology-based new ventures executing their first projects and presents insights into how their innovation tool adoption evolves over time. The paper synthesises case study findings into a hierarchy of tool adoption states encapsulating how new venture teams started with an exclusive focus on effectiveness, and over time progressively attended to problem solving, efficiency, and finally resource management. They often progressed to the next state only in response to costly mistakes and delays, whereas the experienced team in our comparison well-established firm operated within all four states from project initiation. Knowledge of this hierarchy of tool adoption states could help new venture teams to optimise the time they invest in pr...
International Journal of Innovation Management, 2013
In this paper, we present a qualitative, interview-based study of the processes small technology-... more In this paper, we present a qualitative, interview-based study of the processes small technology-based firms go through when they adopt tools and adapt them for use. By extracting 59 instances of tool internalisation across five firms, we derived a coding scheme combining existing and emergent forms of tool bricolage. The four types are reconstruction, reinterpretation, evolution, and customisation. We articulate examples of each type. Our findings reinforce the variability of any given tool once enacted in practice, contrary to implied expectations in some innovation tools literature that tool application is a straightforward mechanical process. In the small firms in our study, we found reinterpretation is the most prevalent form of tool adaptation. This type of tool use is prone to being superficial and failing to gain the benefits available from a more carefully customised or reconstructed tool. We also report on the different ways in which practitioners gain awareness of new tools.
Uploads
Papers by Gerrit De Waal