This thesis aims to identify the changing patterns of product innovation behavior along with the organizational evolutionary stages in a large company in Korea in order to explain the dynamic characteristics of product innovation strategies.
The product innovation behavior is analyzed with special emphasis on the specific product innovation activities as followings:
(1) The planning features for product innovation
(2) The implementation features for product innovation
The samples for this study include the successful new products and major improved products of 53 cases.
The significant findings through the longitudinal in-depth case study are summarized next:
1. The type of activities required to accomplish a product innovation varied significantly in evolutionary stages with respect to:
(1) Formalization of gathering new product ideas.
(2) Coordination of conflict between technical and marketing group regarding the development targets such as product quality level, price, launching time, and initial production quantity.
(3) Objectives of product development.
(4) Methods for acquisition of key technology.
(5) Analysis of competitive situation, etc.
2. In spite of the above variations, each evolutionary stage showed little changes with respect to:
(1) Source of new product ideas
(2) Screening methods of new product ideas
(3) Duration to develop a new product
(4) Technological problem solving
(5) Forcasting methods for a new product idea, etc.
In conclusion, this study examined exploratorily the dynamic changes of a large firm's product innovation behavior along with evolutionary stages, in a developing country. The results suggest that a firm's strategic behavior for product innovation should be understood in terms of contingency approach and longitudinal context. Finally it is necessary to replicate this study in other firms of the electronic industry in Korea.
