New product market visioning in small enterprises : A preliminary empirical study within the Central Technology Belt in England

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the contexts for new product market visioning of small enterprises in the Central Technology Belt, West Midlands, England. Design/methodology/approach – Seven items, which are postulated to contribute to a better understanding of the contexts encouraging or discouraging new product market visioning, were developed and incorporated in a questionnaire. Validity and reliability checks were made. A population survey on all the 3,000 firms in the Central Technology Belt was conducted in January and February 2004. Findings – Compared to the larger firms, small firms have been rated lower in the ability in and efforts on a number of possible indicators of the ripeness of the contexts for new product market visioning. Research limitations/implications – The survey results drawn from a population survey in the Central Technology Belt may not be very representative of the whole country. Practical implications – There is much room for improvement among small firms to nurture the contexts for new product market visioning. If small firms can devote greater energy for nurturing these contexts, they are hopeful to achieve a more impressive rate of conversion from opportunity product concepts to successful product concepts. Originality/value – Previous studies on new products have centred on their development processes and after‐launch performance. New product market visioning, which is at the very front end along the continuum of new product development and launch, has received much less research attention. This study is the first one to carry out large scale investigation into the construct of new product market visioning and develop an initial pool of items to measure the construct.