An Entrepreneurship Lens on the SDL: Insights from NPD Nicole - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

An Entrepreneurship Lens on the SDL: Insights from NPD Nicole Coviello Visiting Erskine Fellow, University of Canterbury Richard Joseph IAG New Zealand

What we know about customers in NPD?  Customer involvement is central to NPD success (Rothwell et al 1974; Cooper 1979; Cooper and Kleinschmidt 1987)  Customer orientation can positively influence NPD outcomes (Li and Calantone 1998; Lukas and Ferrell 2000)  Customer-driven development influences quality of NPD effort (Ramaswami, Srivastava and Bhargava 2009)  Various mechanisms to hear the ‘ voice of the customer ’ (Griffin and Hauser 1993; Leonard and Rayport 1997, etc.)  Role of ‘ lead users ’ (von Hippel 1986; Lilien et al 2002) .... Customers are the ‘inside track’ to innovation (Penrose 1959)

What we don’t know?  The NPD literature tends to focus on mechanisms to involve the customer or the types of customer relevant to NPD or when customers might be involved during NPD  Inconsistent results  Lack of an integrated account of how, when and which customers participate in NPD

Our perspective?  Customers (existing or potential) are a market-based asset (Srivastava, Shervani and Fahey 1998; 1999; Gruner and Homburg 2000; Fang 2008)  We investigate:  how customers participate in NPD,  when this occurs, and  which customers participate.

The setting  Smaller and newer  B2B markets  Really new products (aka major innovation or MI)  Each MI involves non-customized Information and Communication Technology (ICT) equipment  ICT experiences uncertainty and rapid change, with new ideas made possible through technological breakthroughs.

General results  NPD for MI in smaller and newer firms is stream-lined, fluid  Customers can be defined in a variety of ways; many different forms of customer might be involved with NPD  In the same way that customers come in different forms, they can take different roles through NPD (both proactive and reactive)  Beyond customers, there are many other types of actors, all in the firm’s network... all are ‘resource integrators’

Effectuation logic (Sarasvathy 2001)  Successful firms did ‘development deals’, made on the basis of affordable loss  Successful firms leveraged existing and potential customer relationships in different ways  Opportunity surfaces as a relatively unformed idea  Through working with customers, the opportunity is co-created  Risk is shared by both parties

Limitations and implications  Focus on internal informants (no customers included)  Analysis of selected dyads appropriate for study on (e.g.) co-learning, co-creation, or the study of how firms manage uncertainty in asymmetric relationships  Small firms in NZ (and not all the same size)  Basis for study with larger firms and across other institutional contexts  Successes/failures not embedded in same firms  Ideal, but a practical challenge