Michael Song

• University of Missouri–Kansas City

External partners, such as suppliers, are important in the case of innovation by entrepreneurial startup firms. Due to their limited resources and liability of newness, these startups must rely on outside partners for resources and legitimacy to succeed and indeed to survive. Yet, few studies have specifically examined, or provided guidance on, how...

The success of the first product is of paramount importance for the future development of the new venture. Developing and launching a first product in the C hinese market is even more challenging than in a well‐developed market economy because of weak enforcement of intellectual property laws, a general consumer distrust of new products developed b...

Extensive research has shown that organizational attributes affect product innovation. Extending this literature, this article delimits two general categories of organizational attributes and relates them to product innovation. Organizational attributes can be either control oriented or flexibility oriented. Control‐oriented organizational attribut...

In this study, we examine how technological regime affects the performance of technology development projects (i.e., project quality, sales, and profit). Technological regime is defined as the set of attributes of a technological environment where the innovative activities of firms take place. Technological opportunity, appropriability of innovatio...

To overcome resource constraints and achieve exponential growth, a new venture must rely on early customers of its products to communicate value and commitment to others. For this reason, founders of new ventures focus more on early customers as a key element of their founding strategy than on other elements. But when do early customers really add...

According to the resource-based view of the firm, competitive advantages arise from control and deployment of productive resources that are rare and difficult to imitate. Through early entry, pioneers can gain preferential access to key resources. However, the value of that access depends on the presence of isolating mechanisms that limit or preven...

This empirical study of 323 new ventures examines how task and relationship conflict in the founding top management team mediates the effect of lead founder personality on new venture performance. The results reveal that (1) openness and agreeableness increase task conflict, whereas conscientiousness decreases it, and (2) openness, extraversion, an...

Purpose Recent studies have conceptualized market orientation into two distinct components, responsive and proactive market orientation. The purpose of this paper is to examine the environmental antecedents that lead to the adoption of a responsive or proactive market orientation. Design/methodology/approach Drawing upon the market orientation lit...

First-mover literature suggests several pioneering advantages and disadvantages. This study investigates how managerial perceptions of these pioneering advantages affect first-mover decisions by service provider managers. According to the literature on mental models, managers will make first-mover decisions based on their perceptions of pioneering...

This study conceptualizes founding team human capital with three multi‐item scales that are related to critical functional areas in new service ventures: marketing capabilities, market‐linking capabilities, and service design capabilities. We develop and empirically test a theoretical framework linking founding team capabilities to service venture...

Many studies emphasize the importance of government support in technology development. However, this study is among the first to provide empirical findings of the relevance of government roles for the performance of technology development projects. Based on earlier research and the strategic management literature, a theoretical model and hypotheses...

New ventures are often launched for the purpose of pioneering an innovative new product or service in the marketplace. Entrepreneurs or founders of new ventures thus often have to make the decision whether to be the market pioneer or the first mover. While being a first mover potentially is advantageous, it also involves taking risks and facing unc...

While previous studies have shed light on the benefits and antecedents of platform-based product development, there is still much to be learned on the subject, particularly through an empirical approach. Based on the literature, this study proposes the concept of product platform competency and identifies four antecedents related to the development...

This study examines the role of mixed emotions in the risk perception of entrepreneurs, an important determinant of entrepreneurial decision making. We extend the literature on mixed emotions by applying the cognitive appraisal tendency approach and contrasting it with ambivalence stemming from the valence‐based approach. We test our hypotheses on...

Our model explores the effects of marketing and launch activity execution, launch timing, and nature of the product on performance, considering also the SBU's level of cross-functionl integration and market orientation, and levels of channel cooperation. We empirically test the model using new product managers from the U.S. and China, and generate...

Forecasting the adoption of innovative products is an important managerial task. In this paper we examine the usefulness of a probabilistic neural network (PNN) algorithm for forecasting new product adoption. We compare this approach with one widely accepted forecasting procedure, the binomial logit model, and two other neural network algorithms: a...

The authors examine faculty disclosure of inventions, which is an important precursor of university licensing. The authors hypothesize that invention disclosure (ID) is an increasing function of R&D expenditures, faculty size, faculty quality, royalty share, and technology transfer office (TTO) independence from university funding. The authors also...

Low-technology industries are largely neglected in technology management literature. Yet, recent studies show the crucial importance of innovation in low-technology industries. In this study, we analyze technology development projects in a specific low-technology industry, road infrastructure, being a major sector and an important contributor to bo...

Does strategic planning enhance or impede innovation and firm performance? The current literature provides contradictory views. This study extends the resource-advantage theory to examine the conditions in which strategic planning increases or decreases the number of new product development projects and firm performance. The authors test the theore...

Successfully launching its first product is critical to a new venture's continued success, yet the new venture has relatively few financial or human resources to support its marketing or R&D activities. It is thus important for the new venture to attract funding from external investors such as suppliers. Although the operations management (OM) lite...

A substantial body of existing research has linked firm performance to the acquisition and use of customer, competitor, and other market information. This paper examines the impact on new venture performance of formal processes for market information collection and use. This study hypothesizes that new venture performance will be an increasing func...

Does market information improve new venture performance? While some researchers argue that entrepreneurs do not need formal processes to collect and use market information, others suggest that the use of formal market information processes is positively related to firm performance. In this paper, we hypothesize that new venture performance is an in...

With growing levels of competition across industries, technological competence is increasingly viewed as crucial for businesses to maintain their long-term competitive advantage. Although there are many theoretical arguments about how firms' competences can yield competitive advantage and performance improvement, we have a limited understanding of...

Managers form simplified mental models to cope with market environment uncertainties and to process information. A critical decision is whether to enter a high-potential market early. Large innovation and development investments involved in this decision increase uncertainty. We examine the importance ascribed by U.S. and Japanese managers to compe...

Published studies of new product development in Spain provide conflicting evidence regarding the role of cross-functional integration in new product success. One possible explanation for these results is the use of idiosyncratic scales for measuring the level of cross-functional integration. This study adopts the scale items used in a previous stud...

Based on a survey study of 155 U.S. firms, we conducted a firm-level assessment of the impact of different kinds of structures (i.e., functional versus cross-functional) in different kinds of new product development (NPD) processes (i.e., incremental versus radical) on different kinds of firm innovation performance (i.e., derivative versus breakthr...

The effective integration of research and development (R&D) and marketing contributes to the development of successful new products. Barriers such as physical separation of R&D and marketing, goal incongruity, and cultural differences hamper the cross-functional cooperation. However, it may not be either possible or desirable to eliminate the cross...

The authors examine the significance of formal processes for market information acquisition and use as antecedents to success of Chinese new ventures. Building on insights from the entrepreneurial planning literature, the authors construct a theoretical model in which formal processes for market information and market utilization have direct, posit...

The new venture launching its first product faces substantial risks and is typically resource-poor. Moreover, failure with the first product is closely related to failure of the new venture itself, as investors seek alternate investments with better track records. While much guidance appears in the literature for large, established firms developing...

The marketing–manufacturing interface is important to the success of product development. This research investigates the effect of senior management policies on the effectiveness of the marketing–manufacturing interface. Based on existing literature, a conceptual framework is developed that relates senior management policies, marketing–manufacturin...

Entrepreneurial ventures have a significant impact on new job creation and economic growth, but existing evidence indicates that most entrepreneurial ventures fail. This paper reports key insights from VENSURV, a new database that tracks the success and failure of ventures founded since 1998. Based on an analysis of 539 new ventures founded during...

The authors examine the performance impact of formal market information processes. Specifically, a theoretical model is developed that hypothesizes that formal processes for market information acquisition and utilization have direct and positive main effects on new venture success and is then tested using a sample of 222 new ventures located in Chi...

In this study, we focus on road construction and analyze technology development projects. Based on the business strategy literature and literature on technology policy, we test the relative importance of a firm's strategies and government as a buyer and champion. Our empirical findings stress the value of government championing behavior. Our result...

Though much research in entrepreneurship makes the fundamental assumption that opportunities are found, new work is emerging which questions this core tenet. Effectuation, for example, positions the entrepreneur as co-creator of opportunities, together with committed stakeholders. In this study, we conduct a meta-analysis of the articles published...

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) struggle with the paradox of developing new products and technologies on the one hand and minimizing costs on the other. These SMEs must be innovative to survive and grow. However, compared to large firms, SMEs have several problems in their innovation process, which negatively influence their overall innov...

Studies of new product development (NPD) have identified a variety of factors that influence cycle time, but most of these findings are based on case studies of individual firms. The few empirical studies that have attempted to examine the generalizability of these findings have tended to focus on one set of decisions (e.g., product strategy decisi...

Existing studies of market orientation have hypothesized that the strength of the market orientation/performance relationship depends on environmental variables such as market turbulence, technological turbulence, and competitive intensity. To date most empirical studies have failed to confirm these hypotheses; however, these studies (1) assumed th...

The diffusion of innovative new products is critically dependent on the transmission of relevant information to potential adopters. Existing research indicates that the relative effectiveness of different communication tools depends on the type of information being communicated. Written and verbal communication tools can be effective when consumers...

Research on network externalities has identified a number of product categories in which the market performance of an innovation (e.g., unit sales and revenues) is an increasing function of that innovation's installed base and the availability of complementary products. Innovation scholars have attributed these findings to the positive impact of ne...

How do people approach marketing in the face of uncertainty, when the product, the market, and the traditional details involved in market research are unknowable ex ante? The authors use protocol analysis to evaluate how 27 expert entrepreneurs approach such a problem compared with 37 managers with little entrepreneurial expertise (all 64 participa...

Research on network externalities has identified a number of product categories in which the market performance of an innovation (e.g., unit sales and revenues) is an increasing function of that innovation's installed base and the availability of complementary products. Innovation scholars have attributed these findings to the positive impact of ne...

How do people approach marketing in the face of uncertainty, when the product, the market, and the traditional details involved in market research are unknowable ex ante? The authors use protocol analysis to evaluate how 27 expert entrepreneurs approach such a problem compared with 37 managers with little entrepreneurial expertise (all 64 participa...

The study of marketing-manufacturing integration (MMI) in new product development (NPD) projects is rather limited, and has not clearly indicated how levels of MMI should differ across various stages of development for high and low levels of product innovativeness. Our study builds upon prior research that has applied resource dependency theory to...

Drawing on transaction cost economics theory, this study addresses the following research questions: (1) Does supplier involvement in market intelligence gathering activities have a greater impact on innovation success in predesign or commercialization activities? and (2) Does supplier involvement in market intelligence gathering activities have a...

Managers form mental models of their business environment, and make strategic decisions based on these perceptions of reality. We study managerial perceptions of the competitive advantage gained by a pioneering firm. We expect that managers will make pioneering entry decisions based on their perceptions of pioneering advantages. Due to cross-nation...

This paper examines strategic capabilities as drivers of the development and launch of radical innovations. We construct a theoretical framework relating five strategic capabilities (marketing, market linking, technology, information technology, and management-related capabilities) to radical innovation. From this framework, we derive hypotheses co...

We develop a conceptual model for studying the antecedents and consequences of achieved and optimal levels of manufacturer–distributor (M–D) cooperation. We hypothesized that levels of market turbulence, competitive intensity, and the manufacturing firm’s strategic type (i.e., prospector, analyzer, or defender) affected the optimal level of M–D coo...

Existing studies of conflict management in joint ventures (JVs) assume that the characteristics of the tasks that generate conflict have no impact on either the conflict-performance relationship or on the effectiveness of conflict management techniques. In this paper, we challenge this assumption by examining JV conflict over R&D and marketing task...

The authors examine the relationship between strategic type and development of distinctive marketing, market-linking, technology, and information technology (IT) capabilities to implement innovation strategy. They hypothesize that prospectors must build technical and IT capabilities, whereas defenders develop market-linking and marketing capabiliti...

Supplier involvement is essential to a new venture seeking to develop a radical innovation. Despite this, prior literature has not adequately addressed supplier involvement in radical innovation, nor what the antecedents to increased supplier involvement are. We build and test a conceptual model of the antecedents and new product performance outcom...

The research reported in this paper is aimed at developing knowledge on organizing NPD systems to optimize their contribution to performance. To this end, a systems approach to fit is used to explain the context-structure-performance relationships for NPD performance, specifically in terms of fit with market demands of the product concept and fit w...

The research reported in this paper is aimed at developing knowledge on organizing NPD systems to optimize their contribution to performance. To this end, a systems approach to fit is used to explain the context-structure-performance relationships for NPD performance, specifically in terms of fit with market demands of the product concept and fit w...

Technology entrepreneurship is key to economic development. New technology ventures (NTVs) can have positive effects on employment and could rejuvenate industries with disruptive technologies. However, NTVs have a limited survival rate. In our most recent empirical study of 11,259 NTVs established between 1991 and 2000 in the United States, we foun...

Purpose – The resource‐based view (RBV) of the firm has gained much attention in recent years as a means to understand how a strategic business unit obtains a sustainable competitive advantage. In this framework, several research studies have explored the relationships between resources/capabilities and firm performance. This paper seeks to extend...

The Miles–Snow (M–S) strategic typology has continued to receive attention in the academic business press, even though it has been criticized for not making explicit the relationships between strategic type and ultimate profit performance. Using the market orientation and Resource-Based View literature, we develop hypotheses regarding relationships...

There is a need to better understand the advantages and disadvantages of marketing-manufacturing integration (MMI) in new product development. In this paper we examine the influences of MMI in each of four stages of new product development (NPD) on new product time and success. A path analysis of data collected from 467 completed NPD projects indic...

Due to the increasing globalization of businesses, new ideas for innovation need to be disseminated rapidly both within and across different departments and divisions. Frequently, ideas and information are dispersed over globally distributed organizations or team members. As a result, the exchange of knowledge has become not only very important for...

The resource-based view (RBV) of the firm suggests that strategic deployment of capabilities allows strategic business units (SBUs) to exploit distinctive competencies and create sustainable competitive advantage. Following the RBV, we propose a new predictive methodology for deriving typologies of SBUs that accommodates heterogeneity among SBUs wi...

In recent years, many of the basic assumptions underlying organizational conflict research have changed, drawing into question the validity of some previous research findings. Operating from the perspective that conflict is complex, multidimensional, and context specific, this research takes a fresh look at key conflict antecedents, mediators, and...

Globalization and other rapid changes in markets and technologies increasingly require companies to generate new knowledge in order to remain competitive. In order to innovate successfully, firms must generate knowledge faster than their rivals. This study develops and tests a conceptual model that focuses on how managerial controllable variables i...

This paper investigates critical factors affecting the likelihood of new product success and effective new product development (NPD) models for Korean high-tech firms. Empirical results suggest that successful projects differ from unsuccessful projects in project environment, skills and resources, project leadership, strategic fit, efficient NPD pr...

Managing the interface between R&D and marketing is a critical element of successful new product development programs. The purpose of this research is twofold. First, we develop testable hypotheses from a theoretical model of cross–functional team management in the product innovation process based on the seminal work of Gupta, Raj, and Wilemon. We...

Pioneering advantage in manufacturing firms has received much attention in the management and marketing literature. A theoretical framework of pioneering advantage in service industries based on the distinguishing characteristics of services was developed. From this framework, a set of testable propositions about the importance of several types of...

Although one might expect differences between manufacturing and service firms in pioneering advantages, the extent of these differences has not yet been investigated. This is the first cross-national study that compares such differences in nine countries/regions: the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South...

The resource-based view (RBV) of the firm suggests that strategic deployment of capabilities allows strategic business units (SBUs) to exploit distinctive competencies and create sustainable competitive advantage. Following the RBV, we propose a new predictive methodology for deriving typologies of SBUs that accommodates heterogeneity among SBUs wi...

The study explores how managers working for Chinese manufacturing firms and service providers perceive the strategic advantages and the risks of pioneering in a new product category. We develop a set of principles of product advantage and risk from the literature and test our propositions using a sample of senior managers working in China. We discu...

Knowledge application is of key importance in the development of successful new products. Knowledge application refers to an organization's timely response to technological change by utilizing the knowledge and technology generated into new products and processes. This study uses the knowledge-based theory of the firm and considers its roots in the...

The dynamic capabilities perspective posits that a firm can leverage the performance impact of existing resources through resource configuration, complementarity, and integration, but little empirical research addresses these issues. We investigate the effects on performance of marketing capabilities, technological capabilities, and their complemen...

The Miles and Snow strategic type framework is re-examined with respect to interrelationships with several theoretically relevant batteries of variables, including SBU strategic capabilities, environmental uncertainty, and performance. A newly developed constrained, multi-objective, classification methodology is modified to empirically derive an al...

This chapter describes the development and use of a risk reference framework for diagnosing risks in technology-based projects. The risk reference framework consists of 12 main risk categories and 142 connected critical innovation issues. This framework has been developed for a globally operating company in the fast moving consumer goods industry....

Operating in the upper echelons of highly competitive, global markets, numerous Japanese firms enjoy well‐deserved reputations for excellence in new product development. Despite this success, however, almost no research has been conducted to explore the keys to successful new product development in Japanese companies. For the most part, research in...

The commercial success or failure of a product doesn't rest solely on the whims of the marketplace. The myriad, often interdependent, strategic trade‐offs made throughout the product development process go a long way toward determining whether a product succeeds or fails. The key to success often rests in finding the right combination of product de...

By breaking down the walls among the R&D, manufacturing, and marketing functions, techniques such as concurrent engineering and quality function deployment can pave the way to more effective new product development (NPD). Recognizing the benefits of such cross‐functional efforts, practitioners and researchers have examined the interrelationships am...

Building and maintaining internal harmony is a fundamental concern for managers in many Japanese firms. Discussions of Japanese management practices often point to the intense socialization of new recruits, the rotation of employees through different functions, and the significant role of seniority in determining salary levels and promotions. Consi...

As detailed in the pages of JPIM and other publications, considerable research effort has been devoted to identifying the preconditions for new product success. Studies of Japanese and U.S. new product development (NPD) practices have shown that such factors as sales and marketing expertise, technical expertise, decentralized decision making, R&D/m...

Teamwork and harmony are worthy objectives, but a healthy dose of conflict also plays an important role in fostering innovation. In their pursuit of teamwork and harmony, companies run the risk of suppressing the creative tension that brings vitality to new‐product development (NPD) efforts. Furthermore, a firm's choice of innovation strategy may h...

Proposes that firms of different Miles and Snow strategic types will have different bundles of firm-level capabilities; that is, certain capabilities will be more important to certain strategic types. Specifically, proposes that prospectors have greater relative inside-out capabilities and information technology capabilities, while defenders have g...

This article examines an important challenge to effective cross-functional integration: goal incongruity among marketing, research and development (R&D), and manufacturing in new product development. We examine the effect of this incongruity as perceived by the marketing function on three components of cross-functional integration: the harmony of c...

We develop a conceptual model of new product development (NPD) based on seminal and review articles in order to answer the question, “What project management characteristics will foster the development of new products that are more likely to survive in the marketplace?” Our model adopts Ruekert and Walker's theoretical framework of situational dime...

Managers operate in a complex, uncertain environment and tend to form simplified models in order to cope with this environment and make competitive strategic decisions (i.e., cost-leadership, differentiation, or focus). In this study, we use an experimental design to examine the strategic choice decision-making process in firms located in the Unite...

We examine the performance impacts of increases marketing-manufacturing joint involvement (MMJI) across four phases of the new product development (NPD) process. Our study assesses three separate measures of project performance, and contrasts the results across incremental and radical innovation projects. Data drawn from 467 completed high technolo...

No risk, no reward. Companies must take risks to launch new products speedily and successfully. The ability to diagnose and manage risks is increasingly considered of vital importance in high-risk innovation. This article presents the Risk Diagnosing Methodology (RDM), which aims to identify and evaluate technological, organizational and business r...

Acknowledgement: All authors contributed equally to this manuscript. The authors wish to acknowledge the financial supports provided by the Faculty of Technology Management at the Eindhoven University of Technology.

This article examines how the perceived quality of extrafunctional information improves the innovation management process and contributes to success with innovations. Data collected from 420 Japanese managers and 270 US managers are used to test hypotheses about the antecedents of satisfaction with extra-functional information and the impacts on ne...

Knowledge dissemination is of crucial importance for the strategic planning in new product development. Many new ideas stem from recombination of previously successful, disseminated actions, and knowledge dissemination offers a clear overview of market needs, technology developments, and competitors' actions. Moreover, in dynamic environments, wher...

In this study, the authors develop and test a cross-cultural conceptual model of the organizational-based antecedents and consequences of marketing managers' conflict-handling behaviors during the new product development process. The hypotheses were tested using data collected from 968 companies in Japan, China (Hong Kong), the United States, and t...

We propose a contingency model and hypothesize that increases in product innovativeness weaken the influence of product synergies and development proficiencies on product performance. We incorporate these hypotheses in a path model linking measures of product synergy, development proficiency, product competitive advantage, and product performance....

Cross‐functional integration offers numerous, well‐documented benefits for new‐product development (NPD), but it also can carry significant costs. Joint involvement of R&D, manufacturing, and marketing personnel can increase the quality, the manufacturability, and the marketability of the final product. However, building consensus among these group...

Does the development of really new products require a different approach from that of incremental new products? Current research and management practice seem to suggest that any successful new product development (NPD) process comprises a set of key activities, regardless of a product's innovativeness. It seems almost foolhardy to suggest that NPD...

An empirical test of 290 U.S. and 653 Japanese managers, using the Miles and Snow typology, provides a cross-national examination of strategy's impact on conflict. Results substantially support the study's predictions and indicate that firms should: (1) monitor their conflict handling mechanisms; (2) emphasize integrative approaches; and (3) approp...

The authors introduce a new estimation procedure, Augmented Kalman Filter with Continuous State and Discrete Observations (AKF(C-D)), for estimating diffusion models, This method is directly applicable to differential diffusion models without imposing constraints on the model structure or the nature of the unknown parameters. It provides a systemat...

The authors introduce a new estimation procedure, Augmented Kalman Filter with Continuous State and Discrete Observations (AKF(C-D)), for estimating diffusion models. This method is directly applicable to differential diffusion models without imposing constraints on the model structure or the nature of the unknown parameters. It provides a systemat...

Drawing on the marketing and management literatures, the authors identify strategic, tactical, and environmental factor that influence the commercial success of new products. They test the resulting conceptual model using data collected on 788 Japanese and 612 American new product development projects. The results provide insights into the antecede...

Drawing on the marketing and management literatures, the authors identify strategic, tactical, and environmental factors that influence the commercial success of new products. They test the resulting conceptual model using data collected on 788 Japanese and 612 American new product development projects. The results provide insights into the anteced...

Notwithstanding the best efforts of outstanding managers, project team members, researchers, and consultants, no product development plan can guarantee success. Every new products organization will experience its fair share of failures, but a firm can take steps to ensure that its failures do not outweigh its successes. By benchmarking the competit...