African Journal of
Business Management

  • Abbreviation: Afr. J. Bus. Manage.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN: 1993-8233
  • DOI: 10.5897/AJBM
  • Start Year: 2007
  • Published Articles: 4198

Full Length Research Paper

New product development team practices, market orientation and customer knowledge development

Chang Tsun Jin1, Wang Chih-Yu2*
1Department of Marketing Management, Shih Chien University, Kaohsiung Campus, 200, Ta-Hsueh Road, Neimen, Kaohsiung County, Taiwan R. O. C., 845. 2Department of International Business Administration, University of Kang Ning,No.188, Sec. 5, Anjhong Rd., Annan District, Tainan City, Taiwan R. O. C., 709.  
Email: [email protected]

  •  Accepted: 01 February 2011
  •  Published: 06 September 2011

Abstract

The ability to develop and understand customer new product preferences in response to changing market trends is shown as a key to new product success. Given the significance of developing customer preferences and the increasing use of cross-functional teams in new product development process, the authors examine how the new product team practices impact customer knowledge development by proposing and testing a theoretical framework whereby four issues were addressed: (1) the influences of new product team practices on customer knowledge development, (2) the moderating effect of market orientation on the team practices variables, (3) the impact of customer knowledge development on new product performance, and (4) whether R&D and marketing managers share similar perceptions in terms of the antecedents and the consequences of customer knowledge development or not. The hypotheses were examined using empirical data from 228 project managers or leaders in R&D or marketing areas. Our empirical results provide several interesting and significant findings in the influences of the new product team practices as well as cross-functional perceptual differences. The authors also discuss the managerial and theoretical implications in terms of the empirical results for developing new product strategies and providing the future research directions. A good abstract must consist of your research problem, research design, key findings and suggestions. Each just should take one sentence. This paper develops a model relating new product development (NPD) performance to customer knowledge development (CKD) and cross-functional NPD team practices. The model suggests a direct effect of team practices on CKD and a moderating effect of market orientation on the relationship between team practices and CKD. It also conjectures that functional differences in terms of expertise and backgrounds among NPD team members influence the perceptions in both the antecedents and the consequences of CKD. An empirical test of the proposed framework involves a survey of 228 NPD project managers or leaders by using the moderated regression analysis. The results provide general support for the predictions of our model and reveal some functional perceptual differences. The authors also discuss managerial and research implications of the findings for providing future research directions. 

Key words: New product development, market orientation, customer knowledge development.