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This paper aims to empirically investigate the role of product positioning in the launch of food and drink products using a large dataset of new product development by food companies in Australia (AU) and New Zealand (NZ). As such, positioning through credence attribute claims can be associated with product launch strategies, including brand-new products, expansion of product ranges, new packaging and relaunch, as a response to market demand.

Text analysis was used to investigate the descriptions of food claims using Structured Query Language, providing a word list of food claims and further filtered and categorised into groups of claims. Multinomial regression models were then employed to analyse the association between product launch strategies and food claims adopted by firms.

The results of this paper provide evidence that positioning via food claims play an important role in product launch strategies in both AU and NZ. Types of food claims matter differently to firms' product launch decisions in the two markets. The “green” and “ethical” attributes are found to be associated with new launches in NZ but not in AU. Claims that are seen as most important for consumers are more likely to be engendered for the more costly launch approach.

This study is amongst the first studies that addresses the role of positioning in product launch strategies of food companies. The results and findings provide insights into the different prevailing credence attributes from the firm side and help policymakers to regulate the delivery of information about credence attributes to consumers.

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.

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.

Short-term problem solving during production launch may result in extended lead times and increased overall costs of new product development, thereby reducing the overall profitability of a new product. While the previous literature suggests formalized procedures and systematic problem solving approaches, empirical analyses indicate improvised, non-systematic, and ad hoc responses actually being used in firms’ real world problem solving processes. The purpose of this paper is to explain the role of such non-systematic approaches for the efficiency and effectiveness of problem solving processes during production launch.

The paper empirically explores the impact of improvisational problem-solving behavior on a firm's production launch efficiency and on the success of new products. Moreover, the paper investigates the moderating role of technology familiarity, project complexity, and the number of occurring problems during production launch.

The paper finds evidence for a positive curvilinear effect of improvisational problem-solving behavior on new product success and production launch efficiency. Additionally, the paper finds that improvisation is especially reasonable in complex and familiar projects or in the case of many unplanned changes during production launch.

The study provides evidence for the relevance of routinized and improvisational behavior during production launch.

Improvisational behavior decreases the performance of the production launch and the financial performance of a new product in the case of frequent product changes or complex projects.

For the first time behavioral theory is applied to the phenomenon of production launch and problem solving.

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.

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.

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 examine whether perceived brand innovativeness has a positive effect on new product evaluations, which individual variables mediate and moderate this effect and whether perceived brand innovativeness is reinforced by new product launch.

A total of 387 adults residing in France took part in a two-stage study. The two-stage research design aimed to investigate the effect of the introduction of a new product on brand perceptions. The innovation context used to test the hypotheses was the launch of a new electricity meter in the French market.

Brand innovativeness affects the way consumers evaluate new products launched by the brand. This effect is mediated by perceived newness and moderated by functional, hedonic and social consumer innovativeness. In addition, attitudes toward the brand improve as a result of the new product launch.

Future research should test these hypotheses with other product categories and populations to provide external validity for the results and further investigate lack of support for some of the hypotheses.

The study’s findings highlight that the ability to develop and launch innovative products is not only know-how that is critical to innovation management but also a brand attribute stored in consumers’ minds that facilitates acceptance of the brand’s future new products.

This research addresses the underexplored question of how brand innovativeness and new product launch are interrelated. Extensive research has indeed shown the importance of customer-based brand equity and brand knowledge in evaluation and acceptance of new products. However, research on customer-based brand equity so far has paid limited attention to brand innovativeness. This research provides new findings on the relationship between brand innovativeness and new product evaluations.

Considering the strikingly high number of new products and services that are withdrawn from the market very soon after launch, the aim of this paper is to study how early market survival is affected by decisions regarding a particular launch tactic, i.e. the configuration of the adoption network through which the innovation is commercialized. The paper also investigates how the impact on early market survival of this launch tactics depends on the maturity of the technology underlying the new service.

The conceptual model relating the variables “size of the adoption network”, “brand awareness of the organizations comprised in the adoption network”, “maturity of the underlying technology” and “early market survival” is tested in the empirical setting of the Italian mobile value added services (VAS) market, utilizing a longitudinal dataset which includes more than 28,000 new VAS launched between 2003 and 2007.

The paper shows that increasing the number of external organizations involved in the adoption network is a particularly effective tactical decision for new services based on very novel technologies, whereas building an adoption network that involves organizations with high brand awareness in the eyes of prospective customers positively impacts the early market survival of services relying on mature technologies.

Besides providing practical insight to product and marketing managers seeking to maximize the chances of early survival of the services they are responsible for, the paper has interesting implications for launch decisions and diffusion of innovation research.

This paper aims to examine the effect of new product launch actions and firm reputation on firm performance in the Chinese auto industry.

This analysis adopts empirical data from 66 auto firms in China’s auto market from 2007 to 2012 to explore how new product launch actions undertaken by a firm can contribute to achieving superior performance and to investigate the relationships between new product launch actions and firm performance. Moreover, how firm reputation interacts with new product launch actions to affect firm performance is also investigated. Fixed effects regression model following the Hausman specification test was used to quantitatively examine the relationship.

It was concluded that the focal firm’s new product launch actions, including new product launch breadth, complexity and heterogeneity of its new repertoire of product launch actions, and firm reputation can impact its performance. Firm reputation can impact the signaling process and the capability of firms to enhance their performance via new product launch movements.

This research contributes to new product launch research by providing a more comprehensive view of competitive dynamic actions by which a firm’s performance is strengthened by examining the effects of two factors that affect performance. These factors are as follows: the characteristics in terms of breadth, complexity, and heterogeneity of new product launch actions undertaken by a firm and the characteristic of firm reputation.