Antecedents and consequences of the strategic orientations in new product development: The case of Chinese manufacturers

The objective of the present study is to advance the understanding of the role of the strategic orientation of the firm for successful new product development (NPD), in the context of Chinese manufacturing firms. Through field research accompanied by a review of the related literature, this study identifies customer orientation and technology orientation as crucial strategic components that are important to successful new product development. This research proposes a conceptual model of strategic orientations, in which firm-internal (organizational support) and -external (environmental turbulence) factors are expected to influence strategic orientations, which, in turn, impact NPD performance. The model is tested using data collected from a large-scale survey of 232 manufacturing firms in China. The results largely support the hypotheses derived from the conceptual model. First, organizational support and environmental turbulence have a positive influence on the implementation of strategic orientations. Second, the two strategic orientations show a different pattern of performance implications. (c) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.