The diffusion and adoption of tools and techniques to aid new product development

Despite the fact that failure rates are still substantial, research shows low levels of penetration for tools and techniques to aid New Product Development. We set out to gain more' insight into the diffusion and adoption of NPD tools and techniques. Our empirical research was conducted in The Netherlands and involved 70 industrial companies. The results show that the diffusion of NPD tools and techniques' continues. Accelerations and slow-downs in the diffusion process can be noted and explained. Innovation strategy, the number of interactions between departments involved in the NPD process, the number of departments involved in the NPD process, and the number of NPD stages are found to be significant adoption characteristics. Furthermore, our results show a positive relationship between the level of adoption of tools and techniques and company performance. The latter points out that NPD tools and techniques are valuable instruments when aiming to improve NPD outcome.

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