Comparing internal and alliance-based new product development processes: case studies in the food industry

Abstract

Companies may simultaneously pursue different new product development (NPD) strategies. This article reports a comparative two case design study of in-house NPD projects as well as alliance based NPD projects in a food company. Two contradicting proposition’s of the efficiency of NPD in an alliance compared to NPD performed internally are stated, and the findings indicate that the alliance based NPD solution creates a better context for NPD than the in-house solution. Less forwarding of unsolved problems between the departments and a better communication is observed within the alliance. The observed pattern may be interpreted in terms of the framework developed by evolutionary economics, which states that what a firm can do is mainly determined by its organizationally embedded routines. We propose that the observed differences are explained by in-house routine failure, and highlight the importance of including routines when investigating the efficiency of new product development in alliances.