Effect of the product innovation process in new product development with the moderation effect of customer participation in the food industry

Abstract

New product development (NPD) success and product innovation have been a very important topic in management literature. New product development focuses on launching new products into the market, and product innovation is important for product growth and technological improvements. Over the last decades, new products have been launched to create a competitive advantage to companies and to satisfy customers' needs. However, new product development has been a challenge from new ideas to financial aspects. Despite constant searches for new products to satisfy customer needs, the low success in new product developments raises concerns and questions in companies. Companies invest a high amount of resources to develop new products and to improve their product innovation process. However, the constant lack of successful products that satisfy customers and solve customer problems have been the main issue. Many factors can affect new product development, such as the process of product innovation. The product innovation process is a key element for the success of new products. This study focuses on the effects of the product innovation process to successfully develop new products. Various indicators are used for new product development and the product innovation process to help increase the success of products. This research uses a specific population from the food industry, which was evaluated in a quantitative analysis format. A survey was adapted from past studies for the analysis. The results show that there is an important correlation between the production innovation process and new product development success. The regression analysis shows that the production innovation process and open product innovation is positively associated with new product development success. Substantively, this research builds on the growing stream of new product development and product innovation process literature. While previous research has shown that product innovation is an important outcome of NPD, this study explicated the different types of innovation processes on new product development success. Thus, this research extends the literature by showing that there is an extra benefit when the product innovation process meets NPD success.