Exploring New Product Portfolio Management decisions: The role of managers' dispositional traits

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Product strategy links to new product development (NPD) through new product portfolio management (NPPM). This dynamic decision process addresses the strategy implementation questions of identifying which new product ideas to pursue and their relative priorities. Despite the importance of NPPM in implementing product strategy, firms exhibit substantial performance-affecting differences. We investigate one potential source for such differences by examining the impact of managers' dispositional factors as a possible explanation. Using a case study research method, we examine differences in NPPM strategies and managers' revealed dispositional traits across three divisions of a single conglomerate firm operating in different business-to-business markets. Based on our analysis, we offer propositions relating managers' dispositions to NPPM strategy: analytic cognitive style is associated with balance, ambiguity tolerance is associated with strategic fit, and leadership style is associated with the relative weights applied to each dimension. © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Walking the managerial tightrope:top management involvement in product innovation projects

DesignOur data set, collected via surveys from top managers and project managers involved in 86 NPD projects in 85 firms, is analyzed using PLS structural equation modeling. Purpose This study examines how technical drivers as well as social drivers influence organic communication and top management involvement (TMI) in new product development (NPD) projects. Technical drivers are strategic importance and product innovativeness and social drivers are intrinsic and extrinsic relevance. Organic communication is defined as continuous, bi-directional, and informal communication between top management and the NPD teams. Further, arguing that TMI must be studied as multi-faceted construct, TMI is conceptualized to occur as guidance, active motivation, providing resources, and creating a tolerant climate. Subsequently, the effect of TMI and organic communication on NPD performance is investigated. Findings We show that the strategic importance of the project has a positive influence on TMI through active motivation, providing resources, and creating a tolerant climate for innovation, but does not have an effect on guidance. Results also show that active motivation and organic communication improve budget and schedule adherence, whereas providing guidance and stimulating a tolerant climate have detrimental effects. In summary, our results show that only active motivation enhances all types of performance while stimulating a tolerant climate appears to have the opposite effect. The results revealed that organic communication between top management and the NPD team has a strong positive effect on all elements of TMI (providing guidance, actively motivating the NPD team, providing resources, and creating a tolerant climate). In other words, when top management communicates with the NPD team throughout the project in an informal way and listens to the team in addition to engaging in a one-way communication, they are more likely to be seen by the team as being deeply involved in the project