Jeffrey B. Schmidt

A Proposed Model of External Consumer Information Search

An enduring interest in consumer behavior is the investigation of external prepurchase information search. Past research has identified a large number of factors that have been found to influence the extent of information search. The purposes of this article are to summarize the external information search literature and then develop a more parsimonious model of information search. Specifically, we propose that the effects of these antecedents of information search are mediated by four variables: ability, motivation, costs, and benefits. This model integrates the psychological search literature by incorporating ability and motivation to search for information and the economic paradigm that centers on the perceived costs and benefits of information search. Propositions are developed based on this comprehensive model for future testing.

Antecedents and Consequences of Cross‐Functional Cooperation: A Comparison of R&D, Manufacturing, and Marketing Perspectives

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 among various groups in the NPD process, paying particularly close attention to the R&D-marketing interface. However, manufacturing also plays an important role in NPD. Consequently, any thorough exploration of the relationship between cross-functional cooperation and NPD success must consider manufacturings perspective. X. Michael Song, Mitzi M. Montoya-Weiss, and Jeffrey B. Schmidt provide such a balanced perspective in a study of cross-functional cooperation during NPD in Mexican high-tech firms. Notwithstanding the differing functional goals, objectives, and reward systems present in R&D, manufacturing and marketing, they hypothesize that all three functions recognize that successful NPD requires crossfunctional cooperation. In particular, they expect that representatives of these three functional groups will share similar perceptions, regarding both the drivers and the consequences of cross-functional cooperation. The survey results support the hypothesis that R&D, manufacturing, and marketing professionals share the same perceptions, regarding the drivers and the consequences of cross-functional cooperation. Respondents from all three groups view internal facilitators as the drivers of cross-functional cooperation. In other words, regardless of their functional area, the survey respondents believe that the strongest, most direct effects on cross-functional cooperation and NPD performance come from a firms evaluation criteria, reward structures, and management expectations. Respondents perceive these internal facilitators as having a greater effect on cross-functional cooperation than that of external forces such as market competitiveness and technological change. In fact, contrary to expectations, the respondents do not view these external forces as having a significant effect on cross-functional cooperation or NPD performance. And contrary to persistent reports about friction between technical and nontechnical personnel, all three groups perceive a strong, positive relationship between cross-functional communication and NPD performance.

New Product Development Decision‐Making Effectiveness: Comparing Individuals, Face‐To‐Face Teams, and Virtual Teams*

A total of 411 subjects participated in two decision-making experiments in order to examine the effectiveness of new product development project continuation decisions. Using escalation of commitment theory, in Study 1, individual versus face-to-face team decision-making effectiveness was compared. Study 2, an extension of Study 1, compared the new product development decision-making effectiveness of individuals, face-to-face teams, and virtual teams. A virtual team is a geographically and temporally dispersed and electronically communicating work group. In Study 2, the virtual teams communicated asynchronously via groupware technology. Our findings suggest that teams make more effective decisions than individuals, and virtual teams make the most effective decisions.

Escalation of commitment during new product development

Although periodic review is a prominent feature of new product development (NPD) processes, important questions about how managers make critical continuation/termination decisions in risky NPD projects remain unanswered. The authors test whether factors unrelated to a new products forecasted performance cause managers to continue NPD projects into subsequent stages of development at rapidly accelerating costs. The results show that managers who initiate a project are less likely to perceive it is failing, are more committed to it, and are more likely to continue funding it than managers who assume leadership after a project is started. There is also the tendency toward increased commitment for more innovative products compared with less innovative ones. The results suggest that simply giving managers better information will not necessarily lead to better decisions. Finally, the results show that escalation of commitment is a more serious problem during NPD than after the product is commercialized.

Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process in New Product Screening

The initial screening of a new product idea is critically important. Risky projects (i.e., those with high probabilities of failure) need to be eliminated early before significant investments are made and opportunity costs incurred. Unfortunately, previous research suggests that it is often difficult for managers to kill new product development projects once they have begun. Furthermore, recent studies (including some centering on PDMA members) suggest there is much room for improving new product screening, because this decision often is taken informally or unsystematically. Whereas tools such as Coopers NewProd software are available to aid in the screening decision, management science decision support models for screening are not used frequently. In the present study, the authors illustrate the use of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) as a decision support model to aid managers in selecting new product ideas to pursue. The need for flexible models that are highly customized to each firms challenges (such as AHP) to support the screening decision and to generate knowledge that will be used as input for a firms expert support system is emphasized. The authors then present an in-depth example of an actual application of AHP in new product screening and discuss the usefulness of this process in gathering and processing knowledge for making new product screening decisions. Finally, the authors explain how a customized AHP process can be incorporated into a sophisticated information system or used as standalone support.

New product myopia

Explores the importance of several regimes of new product development activities using multiple statistical techniques on two different data sets collected in the USA and Canada over 12 years apart. The results were consistent across the statistical methods and across the data sets, but contradict much previous new product research. In particular, it was found that undertaking technical activities proficiently is more important than performing marketing activities proficiently and that performing development stage (including subsequent) activities proficiently is more critical than performing “up‐front” or predevelopment activities proficiently in determining the success or failure of new industrial products.