Speed leaders and quality champions : Analyzing the effect of market orientation and technology orientation alignment on new product innovation

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a concept of an alignment between market and technology orientations (MTs) and investigates the difference in new product innovation activities and performance among the four groups of high-tech firms which are classified into four categories labeled as MT, technology orientation (TO), market orientation (MO) and conservative (CO) firms. Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from 360 high-tech firms in China. MANOVA was used to identify whether or not new product innovation activities (i.e. timing of market entry and product quality) and performance vary across the four groups. Findings – The results indicate that the four groups of firms significantly differ with respect to new product performance and with new product innovation activities pertaining to timing of market-entry strategy and product quality. Further, the results show that first, MT firms have highest new product performance; second, TO firms are speed leaders which have first-to-market with new product; and third, MO firms are quality champions which are best for the perceived new product quality. Originality/value – This paper responds to call for synthetic studies of multiple orientations and cross-disciplinary research, especially in the areas of marketing and strategic management. This paper is the first to integrate MO and TO and examine the interactive effects of these two orientations on new product innovation. Against prior study believing the combination of strategic orientations play an important role in innovation management, the findings that TO firms are speed leaders and MO firms are quality champions suggest that the combination of different strategic orientations is not beneficial to all respects of new product innovation, such as timing of market-entry strategy and product quality.