Flexibility, Structuration and Simultaneity in New Product Development

A large body of research has pointed out the need for a contingent approach in the design of new product development processes, highlighting the risk of simply accepting a normative perspective that leads to the identification and diffusion of decontextualized ‘‘best practices.’’ In the literature there are contrasting views regarding the identification of the characteristics of product innovation processes in extremely uncertain and dynamic conditions. Some studies propose a fascinating dichotomy: the contraposition between flexible processes and Stage-Gates processes. They maintain that Stage-Gates processes are characterized by ‘‘early and sharp’’ product definition and clear separation between concept development and implementation (detail design and production ramp-up), whereas flexible development models seek to delay the concept freeze point and overlap product development stages going beyond concurrent engineering. Other studies have arrived at seemingly conflicting results; the suitability of the early and sharp product definition approach in turbulent environments is debated without supporting the dichotomy between flexible processes and Stage-Gates processes. Moreover, additional reasons for questioning the contraposition between Stage-Gates and flexible processes come from a series of studies on the management of discontinuous innovation. The aim of the present study was to develop a conceptual framework that can overcome this widely accepted but controversial dichotomy. The framework is based on the recognition of the orthogonality among three analytical dimensions: organizational, informational, and temporal. The organizational dimension refers to the structuration of the process. The informational dimension deals with classifying the development activities and investigating the firm’s product definition approach (early and sharp mode vs. late freeze mode). The temporal dimension relates to the execution strategies of development tasks. The three-dimensional framework enables us to better understand the complex relationships between the degree of structuration in process design (organizational dimension), the degree of intersection between problem- formulation and problem-solving in product definition (informational dimension), and different types of execution strategies (temporal dimension).