Critical Factors in Successful New Product Development: An Empirical Study of Malaysian Manufacturing Companies

摘要

Despite the increasing use of project management particularly NPD projects within organizations, seventy-five percent of all business transformation projects identified as failed. In an attempt to overcome such a high project failure rate, this paper investigates the critical factors towards successful NPD project among manufacturing companies in Malaysia. The questionnaires were designed and distributed to the 79 respondents. From the regression analysis, it is found that project personnel competency and project mission are critical factors influencing the direct NPD project success and as top management support and project mission are two main critical factors for indirect NPD project success. This study recommends that the future research explore the influence of multicultural behavior on the implementation of the NPD projects in the Malaysian firms so that more insights can be gained. The value of the paper can be seen from the dependent variables which the study has discovered; that project success in the manufacturing context can be categorized into two dimensions, e.g. direct and indirect project success.