Managing Product Innovation through Rules: The Role of Formal and Structured Methods in Product Development

This is a study of the role of formal and structured approaches to managing Product Development (PD), and the first chapter of the study is concerned with setting ‘the stage’. The chapter includes an introduction to the understanding of PD in this study and the theoretical perspectives used for the analysis, formal and structured approaches and rules in Stage-Gate as a management technology, and following these motivational sections of the chapter is the formulation of the problem statement guiding the present study. Subsequently, the research strategy and methods and the organization of the study are introduced.