The impact of customer orientation on new product development performance

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the underlying impacts of customer orientation on new product development (NPD) performance. Further, this study investigates the moderating effect of top management support (TMS) on the customer orientation-performance relationship. Design/methodology/approach - This study as a unique approach has classified customer orientation into three sub-dimensions: customer focus, customer involvement and communication with customers. And the NPD performance is explored both from financial and nonfinancial aspects. Findings - Based on a sample of 366 high performance manufacturing firms across ten countries, the obtained results of hierarchical moderated regression analyses reveal that customer focus, customer involvement and communication with customers have significantly positive effects on both financial and nonfinancial performance of NPD; TMS positively moderates the relationship between multiple dimensions of customer orientation and NPD performance. Practical implications - The research extends the customer orientation literature by describing three dimensions of customer orientation and empirically testing their effects on NPD performance. This study also contributes to a deep understanding of the influence factors of NPD performance, both from the financial and nonfinancial aspects. The proposed framework provides a fine-grained analysis to help us understand in what way the customer orientation is linked to performance outcomes. Originality/value - This study is innovative because it seeks to make a contribution to existing literature from a theoretical perspective by investigating the sub-dimensions of customer orientation and moderating role of TMS.