The role of firm size in determining corporate strategies for new product programs

Success in new product development is vital to most industrial firms. In recent decades, a firm's new product strategy is incresinglyrecognized as an essential component of the total corporate plan in developing countries. In this research, 81 Korean manufacturing firms are examined to identify the relationships between a firm's product innovation stratege and the performance results with special emphasis on firm size in a developing country. First, a total of 8 strategy dimensions were identified, which constitute the specific elements of firm's innovation strategies. Two independent dimensions of performance were also identified and were found to be closely linked to the strategy adopted. Then, a categorization scheme is developed to distinguish firms according to their size, and proves useful in performance results might be altered for different company size. The findings generally suggest that a well-balanced new product program emphasizing both marketing and technological effort appropriately is needed to make the program successful. The different size of the company is found to call for somewhat different strategy dimensions to enhance the performance results.