Search results

The paper provides an overview of research published in the innovation and operations management (IOM) literature on 15 methods for cost management in new product development, and it provides a comparison to an earlier review of the management accounting (MA) literature (Wouters & Morales, 2014).

This structured literature search covers papers published in 23 journals in IOM in the period 1990–2014.

The search yielded a sample of 208 unique papers with 275 results (one paper could refer to multiple cost management methods). The top 3 methods are modular design, component commonality, and product platforms, with 115 results (42%) together. In the MA literature, these three methods accounted for 29%, but target costing was the most researched cost management method by far (26%). Simulation is the most frequently used research method in the IOM literature, whereas this was averagely used in the MA literature; qualitative studies were the most frequently used research method in the MA literature, whereas this was averagely used in the IOM literature. We found a lot of papers presenting practical approaches or decision models as a further development of a particular cost management method, which is a clear difference from the MA literature.

This review focused on the same cost management methods, and future research could also consider other cost management methods which are likely to be more important in the IOM literature compared to the MA literature. Future research could also investigate innovative cost management practices in more detail through longitudinal case studies.

This review of research on methods for cost management published outside the MA literature provides an overview for MA researchers. It highlights key differences between both literatures in their research of the same cost management methods.

The purpose of this research is to review empirical research on customer involvement in innovation and identify future research directions that can better connect this research with marketing strategy literatures and offer opportunities for further theoretical development.

We conduct a review of empirical articles published in eight leading marketing and innovation journals between 2001 and 2017.

The review shows that the literature on customer involvement in innovation is highly diverse and fragmented, lacking a common understanding of what constitutes customer involvement in innovation and its theoretical underpinnings. There exists a multitude of conceptualizations of customer involvement in innovation, which limits effective accumulation of domain knowledge. A large number of studies have taken the customer’s perspective to examine their motivation to participate and ability to contribute, whereas less research has been done from the firm’s perspective to understand how firms may effectively manage the well-recognized challenges of customer involvement as well as the implications of customer involvement for long-term innovation strategy and overall performance. Based on the review, we offer recommendations for future research.

We identify important questions for future research that are highly relevant for the practice of customer involvement in innovation.

We provide a systematic review of the rapidly growing empirical research on customer involvement in innovation. We evaluate key points of differences in the literature and offer a synthesis that helps identify opportunities for future research.

This paper aims to explore the impact of supply chain centralities on sales performance moderated by reputation and stock listing.

Empirical data on supply chain relationships were drawn from the context of electronics and electrical appliance industries in Tokyo, sourced from Teikoku Data Bank in year 2017–2018. On average, the authors analyzed an industrial network of 4,181 focal firms with 3.6 and 3.8 supplier and customer ties, respectively, using social networks and moderated regression analyses.

The authors find that in-(out-)degree, closeness and betweenness centralities are positively related to the focal firm’s annual sales performance. Hubs and authorities as ways of measuring reputation are found to not directly affect performance; hubs negatively moderate the relationship between betweenness and performance. Stock-listing was also found to negatively moderate the relationship between in-degree centrality and performance.

This study adds to existing literature by conducting a supply network analysis in a new industrial context, introducing a new method for assessing firm reputation in supply networks and showing how the structural characteristics of supply networks influence business performance.

Recent studies have found inconsistent findings on the impact of supplier and customer involvement on new product development. This study thus aims to explore what contextual factors affect supplier and customer involvement altogether and how such involvement affects new product performance.

The study used structural equation modelling to analyze empirical survey data from 251 manufacturers in Hong Kong.

The study found that modular design, product innovation, and internal coordination are positively correlated with the supplier and customer involvement. Such involvement and product innovation lead to better new product performance.

The study is limited to the use of cross‐sectional data and a single key informant approach, and the industry structure of the sampled industries.

The study examines the contextual factors of supplier and customer involvement and how such involvement relates to new product development with new empirical evidence. The study not only provides new empirical evidence to support the importance of supply chain management in product development, but also extends existing literature to identify new contextual factors for such involvement.

The study re‐examines generalized beliefs about supplier and customer involvement in new product development, and extends prior studies of the contextual dimensions of product modularity, product innovativeness, and internal coordination on such involvement in an empirical way.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to assess the main and interaction effects of activity-based costing (ABC), internal information systems integration (IISI), and external information systems integration (EISI) on manufacturing plant operational performance, controlling for plant characteristics.

Methodology/approach: The study uses survey data from a cross-section of 369 U.S. manufacturing plants. Data were analyzed using hierarchical regression model.

Findings and implications: The results indicate partial support for the main and two-way interaction effects on plant operational performance. The three-way interaction effects are significant and positive, suggesting that deploying all three resources (i.e., ABC, IISI, and EISI) leads to the higher plant operational performance.

Originality/value: The paper significantly extends prior research and contributes to the understanding of the main and interaction effects of ABC, IISI, and EISI on manufacturing plant operational performance. The paper would also be of interest to practitioners interested in keeping up with academic literature.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a competitiveness measurement system for start-ups considering multiple critical success factors.

The methodological approach uses concepts from key performance indicators (KPIs) and multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) based on the fuzzy AHP (FAHP) methodology to weight the criteria related to fundamental points of view (FPVs) and critical success factors (CSFs).

Data collection was performed with 21 specialists and 28 start-ups, which returned the weights and performance of CSFs and FPVs related to the start-ups’ competitiveness. The results show only one start-up had a highly competitive global performance. In addition, all start-ups showed low competitiveness related to industry 4.0 technologies.

The article collaborates with existing research as a starting point for discussions on the subject, considering that previous research did not address the measurement of the start-ups’ competitiveness level through multiple factors, as developed in this article. In addition, we provide decision-makers and other stakeholders in the start-up ecosystem with a robust measurement system to assess business competitiveness and diagnose the company’s situation.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between product modularity (PM) and supply chain integration (SCI), and to identify factors influencing this relationship.

A case study approach involving in‐depth interviews on three modular and two non‐modular design projects in the Hong Kong and Pearl River Delta region was conducted. Within and cross‐case analyses were adopted.

Results support the current view that modular design is related to a loosely coordinated supply chain, whereas integrated design is associated with a tightly coordinated supply chain. However, this relationship is affected and explained by four contingency factors: new module/component development, technological knowledge leakage and creation, project team size and supply chain efficiency.

The paper used a case study approach so the generalizability of the study is limited. This approach, however, enabled us to examine explicitly the relationship between PM and SCI, where empirical research was lacking. The rich content of each case suggested how and why modular design affects supply chain management.

The findings of this paper increase the understanding of the dynamics of modular product design and supply chain management. The paper also explores four contingency factors affecting the relationship.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a modular product design system and a product development roadmap (PDR), which can help to improve modular design (MD) and product innovation capabilities, respectively. Their relationships with product newness (PN) and new product performance are also assessed.

The proposed model was tested through structural equation modelling using data from a survey of 153 manufacturers in the electronic and electrical appliance industries in China.

The findings reveal that the proposed modular product design system and PDR can improve MD and product innovation capabilities. The authors also explore the conflicting relationships of MD and product innovation capability with PN.

The findings contribute to the literature by showing that MD can constrain PN while product innovation can improve it. The study provides new empirical evidence of these relationships and has strategic implications. In addition, this study identifies two product development techniques that can improve MD and innovation capability, respectively.

The authors provide new evidence of the relationship between MD and innovation capability at product level, and confirm a side effect of pursuing both in terms of new product development. Through empirical testing, the authors first verify two product development techniques for implementing modular product design and product innovation.

Design-for-variety (DFV) practices aim to help manufacturers to manage and mitigate the negative impact of product variety on operational performance. Theory suggests that designing products according to DFV practices increases operational performance by allowing more efficient processing of products, capitalizing on commonalities and by supporting cross-functional and cross-boundary coordination through simplifying product designs. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the latter proposition, and especially the mediating role of internal, supplier and customer integration in the relationship between DFV and operational performance.

Data collected in 2014 among 702 manufacturers from 22 countries as part of the 6th International Manufacturing Strategy Survey are analyzed through mediated regression analysis using SPSS 25, AMOS and PROCESS v3.1 software.

DFV affects cost/speed, quality, delivery, flexibility and service performance positively. Except for the role of customer integration in the DFV-cost/speed relationship, internal, supplier and customer integration partially mediate the relationship between DFV and operational performance.

In addition to allowing a more efficient processing of products, the positive effect of DFV on performance is also explained by the fact that DFV practices support cross-functional and supply chain integration. These practices allow manufacturers to create a set of design rules easily understood and communicated within and across organizational boundaries.

While previous research tends to consider one DFV practice and limited sets of integration mechanisms and performance dimensions, this paper consolidates the most common DFV practices into one construct and encompasses the three forms of integration and six performance dimensions dominating the DFV literature.