Is new product development the solution to a crisis or is crisis the solution to new product development

Crises often have debilitating effects on organizations. At such a critical turning point, the new product development team, as a part of the organization, is under pressure to develop successful new products to deliver the organization from the crisis. But what factors are more effective during a crisis? The scholarship has identified several factors that are associated with project outcomes but has yet to observe these factors in a crisis setting. The purpose of this dissertation is to identify factors that are common to both the NPD and organizational crisis response scholarship and test these factors in a sample of managers from a wide cross section of technology-based companies. By studying the practices of 67 NPD teams in a crisis setting and 62 NPD teams in a low crisis setting (N = 129), we found that speed to market can improve new product success rates under times of crisis. In addition, we found a quadratic effect under times of low crisis. The other factors in the model which include team improvisation, top management involvement, and team communications were significantly associated with crisis but did not have any significant effect on new product success.