Organisational patterns in new product development: contrasting The Netherlands, Finland and Portugal

Companies pursuing competitive advantage through continuous innovation are confronted with the tension between today's work and tomorrow's innovation. This paper reports on the search for so-called patterns in NPD. In order to investigate whether different types of consistent NPD configurations might be identified through a quantitative research design, a quick scan using a structured questionnaire was carried out in Dutch, Portuguese and Finnish firms (n = 82). The results highlight some practices in NPD configurations that could be related to key success factors identified in best practice studies, such as a dedicated project organisation, an organisational culture fostering personal engagement and encouraging individuality and creativity, and a strategic NPD programme with a long-term thrust. The results also indicate a pattern of variety among the different countries and a first indication of possible relationships between NPD strategy, structure and culture based on a bivariate correlation analysis.