Collaborative New Product Development through a Micro-Political Theory Lens

This paper develops propositions that try to establish a link between the micropolitical variables of power and incremental planning and the outcome of the collaborative New Product Development (NPD) process. It will be argued that power balances and imbalances among the actors involved in the product development process will influence the outcome of the NPD project, and that in particular high power bases of one actor and micropolitical behavior of the low-power actor both negatively influence the success of NPD projects. It will therefore be argued that the power construct has an inverted U-shaped effect on the outcome of the NPD process. Furthermore, incremental strategy making will be introduced as having a positive influence on NPD projects. Thus, the framework introduced in the paper offers a new perspective on the phenomenon of NPD collaboration and has implications for management practice.