An Investigation on the Role of Disruptive Technology Adoption on New Product Market Performance and Launch Timeliness

In order to increase productivity and efficiency during new product development (NPD), innovation managers are often faced with the question of adopting new technologies (Barczak et al. 2007). This could range from adopting newer physical systems used for product development (e.g. rapid prototyping systems, CRM software, etc.) to the adoption of quality methodologies (e.g. Six Sigma or Lean) in order to optimize productivity across different phases of product development. The benefits of integrating new technology into the NPD process appear obvious as previous literature has found that the adoption of new technologies can drastically impact innovation processes and services (Lyytinen and Rose 2003). However, as employees tend to meet procedural changes with reluctance, technology adoption can be risky (Morgan and Inks 2001; Lyytinen and Rose 2003). Further complicating this dilemma is the disruptiveness of the technology. By definition, disruptive technologies differ drastically from a preceding generation’s technologies, leading to a steeper learning curve, more short-term sacrifices, and increased reluctance from employees and end users (Morgan and Inks 2001; Sherif et al. 2006).

As we investigate, while the adoption of disruptive technologies may improve new product market performance, the adoption process could also slow down a new product’s launch time (Christensen 1997; Lyytinen and Rose 2003). In order to alleviate the negative impact of technology adoption on product launch timeliness, we also consider four moderators: the size of the firm, the information technology (IT) capabilities of the firm, the goal congruency of the NPD team, and the existence of a new technology champion. A survey of 198 new product development practitioners, as conducted by the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA), reveals that the adoption of disruptive technologies, organizational innovativeness, and a firm’s market orientation all lead to more market success for a new product. However, while organizational innovativeness and market orientation are likely to lead to quicker launch times, the introduction of disruptive technologies are likely to lead to slower launch times and missed deadlines. Fortunately, the slower launch times were found to be moderated by the existence of a technology champion and strong IT capabilities. Team cohesion and firm size did not exhibit moderating relationships. In sum, while firms may benefit from introducing cutting-edge, disruptive technologies into their NPD processes, they must have the proper capabilities in place to ensure that these new technologies do not slow down their new product launch times.