The Road to Success: Effects of Top Management Supervision on NPD Processes and Outcomes

The Road to Success: Effects of Top Management Supervision on NPD Processes and Outcomes

Dehghani Tafti, L.

Hultink, H.J. (mentor)
Sääksjärvi, M.C. (mentor)

Industrial Design Engineering

Product Innovation Management

Master of Science Strategic Product Design

2013-08-30

In this project the author studies the effect of top management supervision on two NPD structural elements, namely customer orientation and portfolio management processes, and on NPD success factors: new product innovativeness, NPD speed and costs. Additionally, the effect of the two aforementioned structural elements on the noted NPD success factors is examined. Also, a model portraying these relationships is proposed. Using a data sample collected through direct interviews and questionnaires from top managers and team members participating in NPD projects in various industrial sectors in the Netherlands and Italy (one manager and one team member in each firm), the author conducts qualitative and quantitative analysis to test the hypotheses. The main outcomes are: Top management is found to have a positive effect on new product innovativeness and market success. New product innovativeness, in turn, also leads to market success. No relationship between top management supervision, and speed and costs is found. Top management is found to have a positive influence on portfolio management processes, but no influence on customer orientation. The latter result might be due to the small sample size for this relationship, and should be further investigated. Customer orientation and portfolio management processes are not found to have an influence on NPD success factors. However, responsive customer orientation is found to have a negative relationship with overall product performance. In addition, the following observations are made: Annual sales and profits of new products are found to be negatively related to theestablishment year of the company, meaning that the younger the company is, the lower its annual sales and profits will be. Speed and costs are also found to be strongly (negatively) correlated. Future research can address the relationship between other important NPD structural elements and outcomes, and the effect of top management supervision in this regard. Since the importance and the effect of NPD structural elements on the outcomes may vary in different market sectors, and since this can also affect the influence of top management supervision, future research can also focus on this aspect to look for possible variations in the results.

Top management supervision
Portfolio management
Customer orientation
Innovation
NPD success

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:4ea853e2-283d-469d-a737-058092c3f7de

Campus only

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2013 Dehghani Tafti, L.