Examining new product development speed in manufacturing firms in Penang: influence of external intergration and inter-organization relationship

Ever shortening product life-cycle and intense competition to capture first mover advantage has forced manufacturing firms to continuously improve their new product development (NPD) speed. In today’s globalized market, it is not possible to win timebased competition by developing new products by a...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Beh, Hock Yau
Format: Thesis
Language:English
English
English
Published: 2018
Subjects:
Online Access:https://etd.uum.edu.my/8331/1/Deposit%20Permission_s95907.pdf
https://etd.uum.edu.my/8331/3/s95907_references.docx
https://etd.uum.edu.my/8331/5/s95907_01.pdf
https://etd.uum.edu.my/8331/
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Summary:Ever shortening product life-cycle and intense competition to capture first mover advantage has forced manufacturing firms to continuously improve their new product development (NPD) speed. In today’s globalized market, it is not possible to win timebased competition by developing new products by a firm itself. Manufacturing firms need to leverage the technologies, resources and market knowledge held by their suppliers, customers and research institutes to speed up the NPD processes. This research aimed to assess external integration as the predictor for NPD speed. External integration in this research included customer involvement, supplier involvement and third party collaboration. Inter-organization relationship as a mediator for the relationship between external integration and NPD speed was studied. This research applied the quantitative research method with close-ended survey questionnaires. The research population was the manufacturing firms in Penang that engaged in the NPD processes. Thus, the unit of analysis was the organization of the manufacturing firm. Based on the sample of 51 manufacturing firms in Penang, customer involvement and third party collaboration were found positively and negatively predicting interorganization relationship respectively. Positive relationship between customer involvement and NPD speed was also confirmed. There was no significant relationship between inter-organization relationship and NPD speed as well as between third party collaboration and NPD speed. The mediating role of inter-organization relationship on the relationship between external integration and NPD speed was not significant. This research confirmed third party collaboration as the third dimension of external integration when third party collaboration was correlated to inter-organization relationship. However, when third party collaboration was correlated to NPD speed, the former could not be empirically validated as the third dimension of external integration. This research confirmed the importance of involving customers in the NPD processes to speed up NPD.