Understanding future -market focus: How does it interact with concept generation and concept selection processes for different types of innovation projects

There has been recent debate about whether market orientation helps or hurts incumbents within an industry. This has led some scholars to conclude that market orientation that is oriented to future markets and competitors will lead to greater product innovation. Products can be innovative in terms of technology newness or in terms of their impact on customer benefits. This study examined seven different new product development projects that vary in terms of level of innovation and also in the extent to which the project teams were focused on current versus future markets and competitors. The purpose was to build a theory of how future-market focus interacts with the early stages of new product development. It utilized a paired case study design. It was found that most projects low in future-market focus were stable, with a fixed concept early on, the market needs known, and the primary decision factor of technical feasibility. The exception was the radical innovation in this category, which entailed in-depth customer and competitor analysis prior to generating the idea. Projects high in future-market focus have concepts that evolve over time, and an understanding of customer needs that evolves. The radical innovation project in this category exhibits many of the attributes already documented about radical innovations. The level of market knowledge possessed by the team members and individuals and the processes they used to enhance market knowledge emerged as a key theme that helped to explain the differences between the projects.