New Technology and the Role of Marketing

Abstract

Technological innovation is a common prescription for improving growth and profitability of companies, industries and nations. Such prescriptions are usually accompanied by an acknowledgement of the accompanying difficulties and risks, but there seems to be a widespread faith that more technological input will somehow result in an improved economic output. In the case of an individual firm engaged in developing products that involve product technology that is new to that firm, the prescription may not work. There is now research evidence enough to shake the new technology faith, or at least to revise some of its tenets. The evidence is that technologically new products have a worse, not an improved, market performance compared to new products that are technologically similar to the firm’s existing product line.

The author wishes to acknowledge the active participation of three Phd candidates in the research reported here: Robert G. Cooper, now Associate Professor, McGill University; Roger A. More, now Assistant Professor, The University of Western Ontario; and Norman W. McGuinness, now Assistant Professor, Acadia University.