Title: Managing innovation in medical devices

Authors: Murray R. Millson, David Wilemon

Addresses: Department of Marketing, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-2130, USA. Department of Marketing, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-2130, USA

Abstract: This research investigates three major hypotheses important to new product market success which are: the greater the organisational integration during the development of new products, the greater the market success; the greater organisational integration during the development of new products, the greater new product development proficiency; and the greater new product development proficiency, the greater the market success. Information was obtained concerning the most and least successful new products of US firms in the medical device industry. ||Organisational Integration|| is defined as the degree of cooperation and communication between internal and external NPD ||support|| groups and NPD teams. ||NPD process proficiency|| is defined as how well new product development stages and the new product development process as a whole are performed. ||New product market success|| is represented by four measures which encompass profit expectations, sales expectations, success entering new markets, and success entering existing markets. The field survey approach was utilised in which questionnaires were mailed to recipients such as New Product Development Managers, who had already been designated by executives of the sample firms. Several important findings were uncovered during this research. Overall, organisational integration was found to be significantly associated with new product market success. Internal integration, the coordination between new product development teams and functional departments, was also found to be significantly related to product market success. A significant relationship between new product development proficiency during the NPD development and launch stage, and the degree of integration between a NPD team and internal NPD organisations, such as functional departments, was also detected. During the post-launch stage, new product development proficiency was found to be significantly related to organisational integration with suppliers. These and other findings suggest several important implications for product development managers and scholars.

Keywords: new product development; medical devices; innovation; product development process; organisational integration; product development success.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHTM.2000.001092

International Journal of Healthcare Technology and Management, 2000 Vol.2 No.5/6, pp.425-455

Published online: 30 Jun 2003 *

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