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The importance of new product development to the survival and success of firms is well supported in the literature; however, few studies have investigated new product development in small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). This study aims to examine the impact of product launch, product advantage and market orientation on new product development performance and organisational performance in SMEs.

This model was tested using data collected from 48 small and large sized firms in Ireland. Findings from 33 small and 15 large firms were compared, and a correlation analysis was used to establish the relationships defined in the model for both small and large firms.

The study identified several significant differences between the impact of product launch, product advantage and market orientation on new product development and organisational performance in small and large firms. It also indicated several areas in which small firms can improve their new product and organisational performance.

This research builds on prior empirical research that has established a positive link between customer and competitor orientation and performance of small firms.

The managerial implications suggest that managers need to place a greater emphasis on product launch proficiency, new product characteristics and market orientation.

The results show that a market orientation, as well as having a direct impact on organisational performance, also affects new product development activities.

Endeavoring to expand their global market presence, firms often launch products into emerging markets where managers face the daunting task of deploying products by managing available, and often limited, supply chain resources. Yet, literature has not empirically examined managerial resource orchestration in this context. Accordingly, by embedding resource orchestration theory (ROT) into the emerging market context, the authors offer middle-range theorizing on supply chain resource orchestration (SCRO) and empirically test how acquiring, bundling and leveraging activities impact new product launch performance.

The authors test the model by analyzing empirical data from 175 individual product launches into emerging markets using a survey methodology.

The authors’ results suggest that SCRO holds the promise of being a viable middle-range theory in the supply chain field, especially where managers face limited resources and must “work with what they have to do what they can.”

The authors’ study also has some limitations. First, because a panel data service company was used to collect the data, the authors were not provided with any information regarding the respondents' company names or other identifying data. Second, because the authors did not directly interact with the respondents nor were the authors able to contact multiple individuals from their respective organizations, the study was limited to a single-respondent design. However, to counter issues associated with single-response bias, the central constructs in the study referenced phenomena related to a specific product launch project as opposed to constructs at the firm or inter-firm relational level.

The authors’ results reveal that SCRO activities can enhance the performance of new product launches, even in resource-starved emerging market contexts.

The results validate measures for several of the SCRO processes (i.e. supply chain resource acquisition, supply chain resource bundling and supply chain leveraging) and provide evidence that supply chain resource bundling and supply chain leveraging mediate the relationship between supply chain resource acquisition and product launch performance. Further, soft logistics infrastructure is found to be an important boundary condition for these relationships.

Most new product research for the past two decades has focussed on new product development and product innovation. Only a few product launches have been discussed in specific fields. The purpose of this paper is to fill the literature gap regarding enhanced product launch performance by using the customer relationship.

From the contract manufacturer’s perspective, the authors propose that the customer relationship and senior management involvement affects lean launch execution. The customer relationship includes both cooperativeness and behavior monitoring. Studies have suggested that a lean launch exerts a direct influence on new product performance and marketing performance. We used a questionnaire to collect data to test the postulated research model and hypotheses from project, account, and purchasing managers in the high-tech manufacturing industry.

The results provided compelling evidence that the customer relationship exerts a positive effect on lean launch, which in turn exerts a positive effect on new product performance. Although lean launch execution affected marketing performance through new product performance, the direct effect on marketing performance was non-significant. Senior management involvement exerted an indirect influence on lean launch performance through cooperativeness.

This paper suggests and empirically tests a model to explain how contract manufacturers manage brand-customer relationship through cooperativeness and behavior monitoring, leading to higher levels of lean launch execution toward new product performance.

The purpose of this study is to fill the gaps in previous literature and investigate the link between product launch performance and supply chain architecture and performance. During the past 20 years, most of the new product literature has focused on new product development and product innovation. Only a few product launches have been discussed in specific fields.

From the perspective of the manufacturer, interfunctional coordination, supply chain architecture and supply chain performance affect lean launch performance. Lean launches can also add value to product and marketing performance. A questionnaire was used to gather data from project, account and purchasing managers in the high-tech industry and to test the postulated research model and hypotheses. The conceptual model was tested using 242 usable questionnaires.

The results provide evidence that interfunctional coordination is the basis for improving supply chain architecture. The supply chain has a strong, positive effect on lean launch performance. Lean launch is vital to the successful performance of a new product. Although lean launch execution and supply chain performance affect marketing performance and new product performance, the direct effect on marketing performance is non-significant.

This study presents the characteristics of the supply chain architecture specific to the high-tech industry. The authors empirically tested and propose a model to explain how high-tech manufacturers build a solid supply chain and leverage the capabilities of suppliers to improve lean launch execution and new product performance.

This study examines the role and relative impact of market orientation, product orientation and relationship orientation on new product launch performance, investigating product advantage and market-based assets as alternative mediating mechanisms, which link these strategic orientations to launch performance.

Survey data from the pharmaceutical industry are used to test hypotheses in the research model using partial least squares modeling.

Findings show that while each examined strategic orientation relates positively to launch performance, their performance effects and related mechanisms vary significantly. Results demonstrate a firm’s relationship orientation is the strongest predictor of launch performance, and accumulated market-based assets represent an alternative relational mediator besides product advantage linking firms’ orientations and launch performance.

The empirical study is based on cross-sectional data collected in one specific industry sector. The authors encourage researchers to confirm the key findings in different industry and other contextual settings.

New product launch can be effectively managed as a relational activity. Firms benefit from paying explicit attention to strategic orientations and relationships. Especially, top management should foster a relationship-oriented organizational culture, develop relational competences and fully use the firm’s accumulated market-based assets for increased launch performance.

The study extends knowledge on the role of strategic orientations in launch performance by highlighting the significance of relationship orientations and providing novel knowledge on the key mediating mechanisms between strategic orientations and launch performance.

Based on the resource-based view and dynamic capabilities theory, this study aims to examine the complementarity between market orientations and launch proficiency as a driver of new product performance.

In this research, an on-site survey of Iranian, research and development- intensive, manufacturing firms was carried out to examine the proposed hypotheses. Based on the 179 workable survey responses, a covariance-based structural equation modeling was applied to verify the proposed theoretical model.

The empirical findings reveal that the effects of market orientation or launch proficiency alone are not significant while the complementarity between them significantly influences new product performance. These research outcomes suggest that this complementarity leads to a bidirectional co-specialization relationship in firms, promoting both market intelligence generation processes and product-launch capabilities, and therefore resulting in superior new product performance.

The current characterization of the resource-based theory signifies that strategic resources merely have potential value and actualizing this value needs complementary organizational capabilities. Furthermore, the literature notably lacks empirical findings supporting these complementarities. Therefore, the findings concerning the bidirectional co-specialization between market orientation and launch proficiency not only provide empirical support for the dynamic capabilities theory but also address recent research calls to identify and calibrate the importance of dynamic capabilities for leveraging market orientation on new product performance.

This paper aims to study the drug launch strategies and their effects on new drug performance in an intensely competitive emerging pharmaceutical market such as the one in China.

Data on market share, sales, related firm size and annual profit were obtained for the period, 2004-2008. Profile deviation and cluster analysis approaches were applied in this study.

There is a significant effect of an optimal launch strategy on new drug performance given the respective resource availability and the market environment situations.

The study suggests that multi-national corporations may prove resilient in the emerging economies through both innovative and cost-driven offerings in different therapeutic categories.

This research is unique in studying the drug launch strategies across both foreign firms and local firms in a competitive emerging pharmaceutical market.

This research paper aims to investigate detailed relationships between market selection and product positioning decisions and their associated short- and long-term product performance outcomes in the context of the music category: a cultural goods industry with high amounts of product introductions. Market selection decisions are defined by the size, competitiveness and age of market subcategories within an overall product category. Positioning decisions include where a product’s attributes are located spatially in the category (periphery versus the market center), whether a product resides within a single subcategory or spans multiple ones and what brand strategy (single versus co-branding) is used.

Data are from multiple sources for the US music industry (aka product category) from 1958 to 2019 to empirically test the hypotheses: genres (rock, blues, etc.) correspond to subcategories; artists to brands; and songs to products. Regression analyses are used.

A complex set of nuanced results are generated and reported, finding that key marketing decisions drive short-term new product success differently and frequently in opposing ways than long-term success. Launching into very new, well-established or very competitive markets leads to the strongest long-term success, despite less attractive short-run prospects. Positioning a product away from the market center and spanning subcategories similarly poses short-run challenges, but long-run returns. Brand collaborations have reverse effects. Short-run product success is found, overall, to be difficult to predict even with strong data inputs, which has substantial implications for how firms should manage portfolios of products in cultural goods industries. Long-run product success is considerably more predictable after short-run success is observed and accounted for.

While managers and firms in cultural goods industries have long relied on intuition to manage market selection and product positioning decisions, this research tests the hypothesis that objective data inputs and empirical modeling can better predict short- and long-run success of launched products. Specific insights on which song characteristics may be associated with success are found – as are more generalizable, industry-level results. In addition, by distinguishing between short- and long-run success, a more complete picture on how key decisions holistically affect product performance emerges. Many market selection and product positioning decisions have differential impacts across these two frames of reference.

The capability to predict and evaluate various configurations’ performance during the conceptual design phase using multidisciplinary design analysis and optimization can significantly increase the preliminary design process’s efficiency and reduce design and development costs. This research paper aims to perform multidisciplinary design and optimization for an expendable microsatellite launch vehicle (MSLV) comprising three solid-propellant stages, capable of delivering micro-payloads in the low earth orbit. The methodology’s primary purpose is to increase the conceptual and preliminary design process’s efficiency by reducing both the design and development costs.

Multidiscipline feasible architecture is applied for the multidisciplinary design and optimization of an expendable MSLV at the conceptual level to accommodate interdisciplinary interactions during the optimization process. The multidisciplinary design and optimization framework developed and implemented in this research effort encompasses coupled analysis disciplines of vehicle geometry, mass calculations, aerodynamics, propulsion and trajectory. Nineteen design variables were selected to optimize expendable MSLV to launch a 100 kg satellite at an altitude of 600 km in the low earth orbit. Modern heuristic optimization methods such as genetic algorithm (GA), particle swarm optimization (PSO) and SA are applied and compared to obtain the optimal configurations. The initial population is created by passing the upper and lower bounds of design variables to the optimizer. The optimizer then searches for the best possible combination of design variables to obtain the objective function while satisfying the constraints.

All of the applied heuristic methods were able to optimize the design problem. Optimized design variables from these methods lie within the lower and upper bounds. This research successfully achieves the desired altitude and final injection velocity while satisfying all the constraints. In this research effort, multiple runs of heuristic algorithms reduce the fundamental stochastic error.

The use of multiple heuristics optimization methods such as GA, PSO and SA in the conceptual design phase owing to the exclusivity of their search approach provides a unique opportunity for exploration of the feasible design space and helps in obtaining alternative configurations capable of meeting the mission objectives, which is not possible when using any of the single optimization algorithm.

The optimized configurations can be further used as baseline configurations in the microsatellite launch missions’ conceptual and preliminary design phases.

Satellite launch vehicle design and optimization is a complex multidisciplinary problem, and it is dealt with effectively in the multidisciplinary design and optimization domain. It integrates several interlinked disciplines and gives the optimum result that satisfies these disciplines’ requirements. This research effort provides the multidisciplinary design and optimization-based simulation framework to predict and evaluate various expendable satellite launch vehicle configurations’ performance. This framework significantly increases the conceptual and preliminary design process’s efficiency by reducing design and development costs.

This study examines current dynamics, consolidates current knowledge, elicits trends, identifies and analyzes primary research clusters, offers future directions, and develops an integrated framework for Product Advantage (PA) research.

Using the SCOPUS database, this study applied bibliometric analysis (208 articles) and conducted content analysis on the 35 curated articles selected using a combination of bibliographic coupling and the most cited articles.

This study presents the field’s publication trends, most relevant authors, articles, journals, and knowledge structures. It identifies six primary research themes and four major clusters using the thematic map and bibliographic coupling. Marketing and PA, New Product Development (NPD) and PA, Product Innovation and PA, and New product speed and PA are the main clusters. Finally, this study offers directions for future research and provides an integrated framework for PA research.

By developing an ADO framework of PA, the study offers key insights into how PA shapes product outcomes and identifies key antecedents of PA. Firms must focus on firm factors such as market and technological orientation; product factors, such as development time and pre-announcement proficiency; external factors, such as competition; and environmental factors, such as competitive intensity and technological turbulence. It enables firms to create products with high PA, shaping product outcomes and contributing to their competitive advantage.

This is the first study to conduct a two-stage sequential hybrid review of quality articles on PA. It offers an Antecedents-Decisions-Consequences (ADO) framework based on significant studies and offers cluster-wise directors for future research.