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How companies orchestrate the activities surrounding the development and launch of a new product or service has been shown to have a critical impact on new service performance. Most service companies, including those in the industrial financial sector, have little in the way of a highly developed new service programme. Reports the results of a major empirical investigation of 106 new industrial financial services where the factors which define the new service development process were the primary focus of study. The findings indicate that six basic factors, comprising the technical activities required for design and launch and the type of corporate environments that nurture success, define the service development function for new industrial financial services. Four factors, including the quality of execution of the up‐front activities and of the launch programme, an expert‐driven process and, in particular, a supportive and high‐involvement corporate culture, were shown to have a critical impact on new service success.

An overview of the success/failure literature in new product development points to a long list of critical success factors (CSF), which define what should be done to enhance new product success rates but not how to do it. The net result is failure rates which are marginal improvements on previous decades. The basic tenet of this paper is that the effective use of market information throughout the new product development process (NPD) can enhance the success rates of new products. We examine the contingencies affecting the perceived utility and use of market information in the NPD process and develop propositions describing these contingencies. The outcome of our discussion is a conceptual framework, which can aid research in this critical area of organisational activity.

Today′s British building societies face intense competition in the marketing of financial services to consumers, and accordingly the risks attached to new product failure are high. Nevertheless, a study of these financial institutions demonstrates an alarming lack of strategic planning in their attempts to gain larger shares of an increasingly volatile and sophisticated market. Reviews the strategic focus of new product development, examines related management issues, evaluates the new product screening and preliminary assessment techniques, and explores market research practices. The results of this study suggest that, although approaches to new product development vary, building societies do not make extensive use of commonly accepted development procedures.

This study examined the relationships of normative and affective facets of organizational commitment with experienced burnout within the framework of the Confucian‐based Chinese culture. Data for this exploratory work were collected through a questionnaire survey of 147 employees of a Chinese‐owned bank in Hong Kong. The questionnaire consisted of scales on experienced burnout, organizational commitment, and work perceptions. Results showed that the mean score for normative commitment was significantly higher than the mean score for affective commitment. Regression analysis indicated that when age, tenure, organizational level, and work perceptions were controlled, normative commitment had a significant positive effect on experienced burnout, whereas affective commitment had no significant impact. Results are interpreted in the context of a Confucian‐based Chinese managerial ideology and implications are drawn for future research.

A survey of employed workers was conducted at two time periods to assess relationships between work‐family conflict, well‐being, and job and family satisfaction, along with the role of social support from work colleagues and family members. Levels of work‐to‐family interference (WFI) were found to be uniformly higher than family‐to‐work interference (FWI). However, at each time period FWI showed more consistent negative relationships with well‐being and satisfaction, indicating that family‐to‐work interference may have a greater bearing on employees’ affective reactions. There were few cross‐time relationships between work‐family conflict and these reactions, which suggests that the association of work‐family conflict with well‐being and satisfaction may be time‐dependent. Although there was some evidence that social support from work colleagues moderated the relationship of WFI with psychological strain and family satisfaction, family support did not display a consistent moderator influence. Instead, both forms of support tended to exhibit direct (rather than moderator) relationships with the outcome variables. Implications of the findings for research and interventions are discussed.

The purpose of this study is to investigate labor congestion in the automotive industry in Mexico.

By using the cluster and subcluster definitions by Delgado et al. (2016) and relying on an efficiency and production function perspective, this study estimates a standard production function and measures marginal returns of labor at the regional cluster and subclusters levels. To assess whether wages affect the finding of congestion and productivity, the model also measures the individual impact of wages on both total productivity and marginal returns of labor.

Among other results, this paper finds evidence of labor congestion in the automotive cluster in Mexico. This congestion deepens with wages and it is specific to some regions and some subclusters.

The methods used are based on panel data techniques but are fundamentally cross-section in nature. The time period available may condition these findings.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study reporting congestion in the automotive cluster in Mexico.

Identifies and compares characteristics of firms in the telecommunications industry who have high new product performance. Performance comprises two dimensions: impact of new products on the company and goal performance. Explore profiles of high performance firms with regard to how they organize for new product development (NPD), the activities undertaken in the NPD process, and their choice of new product strategies. The results show that the NPD structures, processes and strategies of high performance firms vary by the measure of performance.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether managers should have a different approach for the development of very innovative services from that of incremental new services.

This paper is based on a large‐scale survey to examine hotel innovation projects to gain insight about the impact of level of innovativeness on the factors that are linked to new service success and failure.

The research results show that there are two global success factors regardless of their degree of newness – market attractiveness and strategic human resources management. Several other factors, however, are found to influence the outcome of incremental projects, such as: service advantage, empowerment, training of employees, behavior‐based evaluation, tangible quality and marketing synergy. For very innovative new hotel services, market responsiveness and pre‐launch activities are found to be related to success.

Further research should investigate whether the results are applicable to other countries and other service segments as well as to consider a staff or customer outcome perspective.

Managers who design new service development processes that are tied to the key success features in innovative or incremental new service development (NSD) increases the likelihood of success.

The differences in success factors between innovative and incremental new services has not been clearly articulated to date. Innovativeness is linked to levels of risk, ambiguity, necessary resources and complexity and this paper shows that firms should have different priorities and approaches when developing new services.

This paper aims to outline the innovation process activities described by quick‐service restaurant (QSR) managers and to compare it with an earlier QSR process model and with those used in other food service settings.

Six semi‐structured interviews with QSR chain executives in the USA were conducted to better understand the underlying factors and dimensions that describe successful innovation process practices.

For new QSR menu innovations, the development teams follow a structured approach to reduce the likelihood of failure due to issues such as poor consumer demand or implementation. QSR screen new food innovations approximately five times during the development process. Furthermore, today's QSR innovation process integrates more sophisticated market research technology and a post‐audit is carried out after the new food concept has been launched. In comparison with studies of Michelin‐starred chefs QSR development teams use an approach that is much more explicitly structured as a whole due to the larger scale roll‐out as well as greater cross‐functional and regional differences to consider in the QSR setting.

The study was conducted in only one country and on a small sample. Based on an analysis of the findings, the innovation development process of QSR can be broken down into 13 main steps. Compared with earlier hospitality innovation studies, the process in this setting includes multiple screenings for high‐risk innovations, and greater emphasis on operational and training issues.

The study expands the scope of hospitality innovation research and the findings have important implications not only for QSR settings but also for other restaurant segments, and for other hospitality service endeavours.

Deregulation, advances in enabling technology, and aggressive competition from new suppliers, including banks, are causing more and more traditional insurance companies to revise the way in which product development is undertaken. A study of ten companies offering life insurance and ten companies offering general insurance in Britain shows that a few of them are now putting into place amended managerial systems. The marketing function is undergoing changes in responsibilities in all these companies. While most companies have key managers who have visions of how markets can be reshaped to give distinct competitive advantages, effecting such changes within existing operating constraints poses major challenges.