Adoption of NPD flexibility practices in new technology‐based firms

Purpose – New technology‐based firms (NTBFs) play a growing role in national economies. Given their nature, it is possible to suppose that these companies should manage their development processes by leveraging on flexibility. Thus, the main purpose of the paper is to understand to what extent NTBFs apply the methods and tools identified in the existing literature to increase the flexibility of new product development (NPD) processes. Design/methodology/approach – Eight in‐depth case studies are conducted in order to draw and test a questionnaire for the extended research. Then, the questionnaire is submitted to 550 firms obtaining a final sample of 48. The first step of data analysis, based on factor analysis methodology, allows to reduce and clarify the practices applied by companies to increase the flexibility of the innovation process. The second step allows, using one‐way ANOVA, to understand which practices for managing innovation processes are used in significantly different ways by high‐ and low‐performing companies in the sample. Findings – The first result is that, in their development processes, NTBFs pay major attention to: management of technology; management of the NPD process; and management of competencies. A second relevant result is that high‐performing NTBFs, despite their peculiar characteristics, do apply the majority of the best practices identified in literature for technology‐based companies. Originality/value – Even though NTBFs have been studied for some time now, seldom have these studies focused on their innovation management processes. This paper does it by going in the detail of the organizational and process variables that can increase the flexibility of this process.