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The main purpose of this paper is to determine the content of amino acids, fatty acids and minerals in seven indigenous leafy vegetables (ILVs) in Ghana.

Leaves from plants growing near Kumasi were milled to a fine powder, dried to constant weight in a vacuum desiccator, and analyzed for their content of the afore‐mentioned nutrients. The plants were: Hibiscus sabdarifa, Hibiscus cannabinus, Amaranthus cruentus, Corchorus oliforius, Solanum macrocarpon, Xanthomosa sagittifolium and Vigna unguiculatus.

All seven ILVs contained a large amount of protein (15.5‐22.8 percent), which compared favorably to the essential amino acid pattern of a WHO standard. They all contained nutritionally useful amounts of α‐linolenic acid and had an omega‐6/omega‐3 ratio of 0.1‐0.9. The seven ILVs contained quantities of calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum and zinc that could contribute significantly to satisfying an individual's need for these elements.

The presence of relatively large amounts of various nutritionally essential macro‐ and micronutrients in these seven ILVs does not necessarily mean these nutrients are bioavailable. Future research is required to determine the amounts of anti‐nutrients (e.g. protease inhibitors, chelators) in these vegetables, and the extent to which their protein, lipid and mineral constituents are digested and/or absorbed.

Since malnutrition (e.g. iron‐deficiency anemia, rickets, zinc deficiency, protein‐calorie malnutrition) is common in sub‐Saharan Africa, the information which is provided should increase awareness among agricultural and public health officials of the nutritional value of seven underappreciated and underutilized ILVs that are indigenous to Ghana and many other parts of Africa.

Alliances are an increasingly common way of organizing the uncertain exploration phase of radical innovation. It may, however, be argued that there is inherent tension between the logic of alliances and the logic of innovation. Whereas innovation is generally argued to require flexibility, political protection and extensive communication, the commonly mentioned key characteristics of alliances are detailed contractual regulation, political struggles and limited information exchange. Based on an in‐depth case study of a largely successful alliance for innovation between a European bank and a European telecommunications operator, this paper argues that the tensions between an innovation logic and an alliance logic may be overcome by creating a multilevel governance structure for the alliance, with a learning agenda on both the operational and strategic levels. The different levels of the structure are described and their contribution to the success of the alliance discussed.

The purpose of this research is to investigate the moderating impact of product innovativeness on the new product market success‐organizational integration relationship. Design/methodology/approach – A mail survey research approach was used that gathered 131 completed survey instruments from NPD managers in the electrical products, medical devices, and the heavy construction equipment industries. Findings – This research confirmed that organizational integration during NPD processes and the innovativeness of new products are associated with new product market success. This study also discovered that product innovativeness does not moderate the organizational integration‐new product market success relationship.

This study's findings may not be generalizable to industries beyond those studied, the studied relationships may change when new product projects are appended to one another, and it may be necessary to take into account several dimensions of product innovativeness to ascertain the relationship between product innovativeness and new product market success.

This study's results imply organizational integration can be increased to increase the market success of new products; new product developers should integrate marketing and R&D during NPD projects; and the innovativeness of new products can be increased without affecting the organizational integration‐new product market success relationship. Originality/value – The investigation of the following research questions contributes to NPD knowledge. How is new product market success related to NPD organizational integration? How is new product market success related to a product's innovativeness? To what extent does the innovativeness of new products moderate the relationship between new product market success and organizational integration?

The purpose of the study is to examine the influence of internal integration and external integration on three types of shared knowledge (shared knowledge of internal capabilities, customers, and suppliers) and whether more leads to superior firm innovation capability and product competitive advantage.

The paper draws on results from a large‐scale survey. The empirical data used in the study comprises of 245 high technology firms in Taiwan. This study applies the confirmatory factor analysis to examine the reliability and validity of the measurement model, and the structural equation modeling (SEM) to investigate the hypotheses and research model.

The results show that internal integration and external integration significantly influence shared knowledge of internal capabilities, customers and suppliers among new product development (NPD) team members. The results also indicate that team members' shared knowledge enable the firm to improve innovation capability and new product competitive advantage.

As the data used in the study was cross‐sectional, the causal relationships and the sustainability of firm and product innovative performance cannot be easily captured. Future research can examine how factors of individual traits, organizational characteristics, and external environmental factors may influence the shared knowledge and product competitive advantage.

This study emphasizes the importance of the firm's integration to utilize and share knowledge of internal capabilities, customers and suppliers effectively. Besides, the relationships among internal/external integration, shared knowledge, firm innovation capability and product competitive advantage may provide a clue regarding how firms can manage integrations and promote knowledge‐sharing culture to sustain their firm innovation capability and product competitive advantage.

As only little empirical research has been conducted on the impact of internal/external integration on the firm's innovative capability and product competitive advantage through shared knowledge, the empirical evidence reported here makes a valuable contribution in this highly important area.

This paper faces the problem of the decision maker who has to identify the most appropriate organisational mode for the external acquisition of a certain technology. Its objective is twofold: to explain the rationale behind the choice of a definite mode of collaboration, i.e. to understand which aspects of the specific technological collaboration are considered by companies when selecting the organisational form; and to describe the process through which the choice is actually made, i.e. to understand which is the logical path which leads to selection of a definite organisational form. A framework is proposed and then applied to a case study.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how the performance of apparel products is measured in the apparel business so as to contribute theoretical understanding and the company's capacity of apparel product development.

Qualitative research method was employed. Face‐to‐face interviews were conducted with 27 individuals who have developed apparel products in the US apparel and retail industries. Emergent themes were classified into Griffin and Page's “core success and failure measures” including customer acceptance, financial performance, product‐level, and firm‐level.

Findings revealed that the performance measures for apparel products are multidimensional. The combination of consumer acceptance and financial performance measures, especially sales and profitability, served as critical measures for apparel product performance. Both long‐ and short‐term performances were considered.

The small, convenience and purposeful sample should be considered as a limitation.

The findings from this study may be useful for apparel product development in the apparel industry where it is important, particularly in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

The emergent performance measures in this study may be used as a baseline for further studies that need to measure apparel product performance.

Developing new products for international markets offers great growth opportunities for companies by positively influencing company performance. Specifically, the research purpose is to determine the effects of new product success factors on the measures of company export performance, namely export sales, export growth and export profitability.

The study examines the new product success factors, discriminating successful new products from unsuccessful ones in international markets. A pre-tested structured questionnaire is employed for collecting data from the companies. The population frame consists of exporting manufacturing companies and was determined from the records of the Export Promotion Centre of Turkey (IGEME). Of the 250 questionnaires sent out, 116 were completed and returned yielding a response rate of 46.4 percent. The study analysed data from 202 new product projects.

The research determined that various new product success factors have different levels of effect on company performance in international markets, mainly measured in terms of sales, market share and profitability. Specifically, it identified that pre-development and development activities, a large and fast-growing foreign market with huge demand, order of entry and large and well-executed advertising activities differentiate successful new products from unsuccessful ones. Product characteristics are, on the other hand, not found to be a strong factor differentiating successful new products from unsuccessful ones in international markets.

The main objective of the study is to integrate knowledge from two disciplines and expand new product success factors for international markets. The paper aims to bring together all the factors leading to the success of new products in international markets, and to test the effects of those factors on company performance. It is hoped that the findings will help managers and policy makers.

For manufacturing firms, the concept of integration is hardly novel. The Total Quality, JIT, and supply chain management movements required improved internal and external coordination. While these movements centred on the manufacturing function, research suggests that integration of several functions at different organisational levels achieve above average financial and performance results. However, studies show enterprise integration is associated with many problems; at the root of these is a fundamental assumption: that all enterprise integration initiatives are equally important. Challenges this assumption. Argues that enterprise initiatives differ by their purpose; and proposes a framework for typifying enterprise integration initiatives that is based on the capabilities developed for the organisation. Four types of enterprise initiatives are identified. Illustrates each type with organisational examples. Discusses the managerial implications.

The purpose of this paper is to examine new product development (NPD) financial performance enablers through examining the roles of NPD capabilities improvement, NPD knowledge sharing and NPD internal learning in manufacturing organisations in Jordan.

Based on relevant literature review on NPD performance, a structured questionnaire was developed to collect data related to NPD performance measures. Questionnaires were distributed to a sample of 558 manufacturing organisations in Jordan, out of which 355 were returned and valid for the analysis. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were applied to reveal NPD performance success dimensions that manufacturing organisations use to assess NPD performance success. Then, path analysis was employed to examine the research model and test its hypotheses.

The study’s findings reveal that manufacturing organisations use a multidimensional construct for assessing NPD performance success, which consists of NPD financial performance, NPD internal learning, NPD capabilities improvement, NPD knowledge sharing, and NPD marketing performance. NPD capabilities improvement exerted a positive and significant effect on each of NPD internal learning, NPD knowledge sharing, and NPD marketing performance, respectively. NPD knowledge sharing exerted a positive and significant effect on each of NPD internal learning NPD marketing performance. Each of NPD internal learning and NPD marketing performance exerted a positive and significant effect on NPD financial performance. The structural findings also indicate that 38.1 per cent (R2 is 0.381) of NPD financial performance is explained by the path of NPD capabilities improvement, NPD knowledge sharing and NPD marketing performance, which is the strongest path in the empirical model.

The paper’s focus on manufacturing organisations limits its contribution to the manufacturing sector only. The services sector is a rich field for understanding NPD financial performance enablers in various service industries. Further, the paper focusses on only five dimensions of NPD performance success, other dimensions of NPD performance success might add more insights to their effect on NPD performance success measures especially their effect on organisational performance.

The findings of this study provide managers of manufacturing organisations with empirical insights related to the multidimensionality of NPD and their complex relationships to enhance NPD financial performance. The empirical findings assist managers to assess their NPD strategies, processes and implementation based on a results-oriented approach. The major contribution of the study is identifying the strongest paths of NPD financial performance enablers which reveals the complexity and criticality of NPD capabilities improvement, NPD knowledge sharing and NPD marketing performance on NPD financial performance. The rationale is NPD financial performance is still the most important NPD performance success dimension amongst manufacturing organisations.

The originality of this paper stems from developing and testing a multidimensional model of NPD financial performance enablers for the first time in emerging markets, Jordan. NPD financial performance is a function of other areas of NPD performance dimensions, namely; NPD capabilities improvement, NPD knowledge sharing and NPD marketing performance. This empirical evidence is provided to managers for the first time by this study.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the NPD performance success measures that manufacturing organisations use to assess the success of their new products.

Based on relevant literature review and in-depth interviews, a structured questionnaire was developed as a primary data collection method. Questionnaires were distributed to a sample of 558 manufacturing organisations in Jordan, out of which 355 were returned and valid for the analysis. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were applied to reveal NPD performance success measures dimensions.

This study empirically showed that manufacturing organisations in Jordan use a multidimensional construct for NPD performance success measures to assess the success of their new products. The multidimensional construct consists of NPD financial performance, NPD internal learning, NPD capabilities improvement, NPD knowledge sharing and NPD marketing performance. The findings indicate that NPD financial performance is still the dominant dimension amongst the manufacturing organisations while measuring NDP performance. Also, the study has developed an inductive model of NPD performance success measures which shows the construct’s dimensions complexity.

The fact that the paper is a single country study focusing on the manufacturing industry limits its generalisation to other industries/contexts. The paper’s focus on manufacturing organisations limits its contribution to the manufacturing sector. The services sector is a rich field for NPD performance success measures, in addition to being an important contributor to the economy of most, if not all, countries. Further, the paper focuses on only five dimensions of NPD performance success measures, other dimensions of NPD performance success measures might add more insights to their effect on NPD performance success measures.

Utilising the findings of this study can help managers make sense of NPD success and failure and plan the NPD strategy and activities across a range of differing situations. The major contribution of this study is increasing the ability of managers to improve their skills and capabilities and focus on the dimensions of NPD success in the best way that enables them to respond effectively to uncertainty caused by changes in the product life cycle which in turn might affect the performance of NPD. The findings urge managers to deal with NPD as a complex process that should be integrated within corporate, business and functional strategies of the firm.

The originality of this paper stems from its multidimensional construct of NPD performance success measures as well as in developing an inductive model that shows the complexity of NPD performance dimensions that can be used for assessing the success of new products. The study also has its originality since it is the first empirical work conducted on the manufacturing sector in an emerging market business environment, Jordan.