The Future of NPD/Innovation ResearchGloria Barczak

W ith innovation becoming even more criticalin a time of prolonged economic volatility,there are many issues that likely deserve

further research to help organizations improve their inno-vation capabilities. However, this piece will focus on fivetopics that I believe warrant an in-depth investigation byacademics: service innovation, global innovation, gatereviews, social innovation, and open innovation.

Service Innovation

Roughly 70% of the U.S. economy is service based, yetour research predominantly focuses on products/goods.Also, many offerings today are good/service hybrids, forexample, the iPod and iTunes. Yet again, our researchneglects to address whether or not what we know aboutproduct development and innovation applies readily toservices and hybrid offerings. Some questions that needto be answered include:

• How can opportunities in services, good/servicehybrids be identified and evaluated?

• What effective practices exist for involving customersand network partners in identifying, creating, anddeveloping services and good/service hybridinnovations?

• What are the successful launch strategies for servicesand good/service hybrids?

• How can a service firm create a culture of innovation?

• What are the effective strategies and capabilities forcorporations moving from a focus on goods to good/service hybrids and service innovation?

Global Innovation

The relationship between national culture and newproduct development (NPD) is an important area forresearch; however, it has not been emphasized in theliterature (Nakata and Sivakumar, 1996). Current innova-

tion research shows that country effects do exist. But, themajority of this research is based on North American andWestern European contexts. It has been argued that inorder to develop generalized theories applicable acrossdifferent nations or cultures, research on innovation andNPD needs to be extended to non-Western contexts(Song, Kawakami, and Stringfellow, 2010; Song andParry, 1996). With the rise of emerging economies suchas Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC nations), thereis a need to examine what we know about NPD andinnovation and see whether these same principlesand best practices work effectively in non-Western andemerging market contexts.

Within the scope of global innovation, recent researchhas focused on two important issues: reverse innovationand innovation at the bottom-of-the-pyramid (BOP).Though related, these two concepts are different; furtherexamination of both is needed. Several essential ques-tions that need to be resolved include:

• What is the extent of reverse innovation and innovationat the bottom of the pyramid being undertaken bycompanies? What kinds of companies are undertakingsuch innovations?

• What are some of the best practice approaches forgetting such innovations implemented?

• What is the impact of reverse innovation and innova-tion at the BOP on firm performance?

• What are the capabilities needed to be successful inthese types of strategic innovation approaches?

Gate Reviews

Little research exists on NPD project gate reviewsalthough there have been several useful studies publishedsince 2003. Most recently, Schmidt, Sarangee, andMontoya (2009) provided insight into several importantquestions on this topic including the number of reviewpoints and decision makers, the number of review criteriaand proficiency of usage, differences in review practicesby innovativeness of the product, and the relationshipbetween review practices and new product performance.Nonetheless, the dearth of research means that little bestpractice with regard to gate reviews exists. Thus, furtherresearch is needed on some fundamental questions:

Address correspondence to: Gloria Barczak, Professor of Marketing,202 Hayden Hall, College of Business Administration, 360 HuntingtonAvenue, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115. E-mail: g.barczak@neu.edu. Tel: 617-373-5251.

J PROD INNOV MANAG 2012;29(3):355–357© 2012 Product Development & Management AssociationDOI: 10.1111/j.1540-5885.2012.00907.x

• Should gate criteria vary by stage of NPD process?

• Should gate criteria vary by type of innovation (i.e.,incremental, really new, radical)?

• Should gate criteria vary for services versus goodsversus good/service hybrids? If so, how?

• Should rigorous gate reviews be used for radical inno-vations? How do gate reviews affect the performanceof radical innovations?

• What criteria are best for different types of innovationsat each stage of the NPD process?

Social Innovation

Social innovations focus on helping to solve socialissues such as health care, natural environment,economy, education, consumer privacy, etc. Interest insocial responsibility and activism has increased oncollege campuses and in communities as evidenced bythe dramatic growth experienced by Net Impact, whichhas 217 student chapters and 57 professional chapters.“Net Impact’s mission is to mobilize a new generationto use their careers to drive transformational change intheir workplaces and the world” (http://netimpact.org/about).

Given the wide range and seemingly increasing quan-tity of social problems that exist across the world and theinterest of current and future business leaders to developand implement solutions to these problems, it seems thatseveral elemental questions need exploration:

• How can social innovation opportunities be identifiedand evaluated?

• How much social innovation is being undertaken byorganizations, what kind of organizations are theprimary drivers of such innovation, and what practicesare they using?

• What is the impact of social innovations on firm per-formance, brand image, etc.? What is the impact ofsocial innovations on the recipients?

• What best practices exist for successful developmentand implementation of social innovations?

• What are the drivers of/antecedents to socialinnovation?

Open Innovation

Open innovation “assumes that firms can and should useexternal ideas as well as internal ideas, and internal andexternal paths to market, as they look to advance theirtechnology” (Chesbrough, Vanhaverbeke, and West,2006). Although there are many unanswered questionswith regard to open innovation (cf. Chesbrough et al.,2006, chap. 14), some of the issues that I believe areworth pursuing focus on three areas: networks, cocre-ation, and social media.

Networks

• How can an organization assess the capabilities of thevarious actors involved in creating, developing, andcommercializing innovations?

• What strategies, tools, processes, and practices aremost effective for forming and sustaining networks?

• To what extent are networks being used by firms foropen innovation? What kinds of networks predominateand are most effective? How do these issues vary byfirm, industry, and country?

• What are the effective practices and strategies fordealing with the intellectual property issues broughtabout by using networks for innovation?

Cocreation

• What tools and processes enable effective cocreationefforts with customers?

• What is the impact of customer cocreation efforts oninnovation and firm performance?

Social Media

• What types of firms are using social media for innova-tion, when are they using it (stages and activities withinNPD process), and how are they using it?

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Dr. Gloria Barczak is Professor and Chair of the Marketing Group andDirector of the Institute for Global Innovation Management in theCollege of Business Administration at Northeastern University. She hasbeen ranked twice as one of the Top 25 Innovation Management Schol-ars in the world and was the Robert D. Klein University Lecturer atNortheastern University in 2010. Professor Barczak’s research has beenpublished in a variety of journals including the Journal of ProductInnovation Management, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Manage-ment, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Business Research,Research-Technology Management, and R&D Management. She is onthe Editorial Board of the Journal of Product Innovation Management,IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, and Creativity andInnovation Management. Professor Barczak is a member of the ProductDevelopment & Management Association (PDMA), the American Mar-keting Association (AMA), and the PDMA Academic Committee. Shehas served as Co-Chair of the 2011 PDMA Research Forum, Chair of the2007 PDMA Research Competition, Chair of the 2003 PDMA ResearchForum, and Chair of the New Product Development Track at the 2006AMA Summer Educators’ Conference.

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• What are the effective strategies for using social mediafor innovation?

• What types of social media work best for innovationefforts (i.e., incremental, really new, radical)?

Conclusion

The above discussion represents this researcher’s per-spective on issues and topics that might be interesting anduseful for academics to pursue. It should be noted thatalthough the five topics discussed above are presented asmutually exclusive, in reality, they are not. Thus,researchers should also consider integrating two or moreof these broad topics when considering future researchopportunities. I hope that these thoughts provoke andmotivate other academics to undertake research in theseareas.

References

Chesbrough, H., W. Vanhaverbeke, and J. West, eds. 2006. Open innova-tion: Researching a new paradigm. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Nakata, C., and K. Sivakumar. 1996. National culture and new productdevelopment: An integrative review. Journal of Marketing 60: 61–72.

Schmidt, J., K. Sarangee, and M. Montoya. 2009. Exploring new productdevelopment project review practices. Journal of Product InnovationManagement 26 (5): 520–35.

Song, M., T. Kawakami, and A. Stringfellow. 2010. A cross-national com-parative study of senior management policy, marketing-manufacturinginvolvement, and innovation performance. Journal of Product Innova-tion Management 27 (1): 179–200.

Song, X. M., and M. E. Parry. 1996. What separates Japanese new productwinners from losers. Journal of Product Innovation Management 13(5): 422–39.

THE FUTURE OF NPD/INNOVATION RESEARCH J PROD INNOV MANAG 3572012;29(3):355–357