New product development practices in American and British firms.

This paper presents a comparative study of the New Product Development (NPD) environment and practices between American and British firms. Our analysis is based on an in-depth survey of 63 British and 37 American firms. The selected firms represent key industrial sectors of computer, electronics, chemical and transportation. This paper also reviews previous comparative studies, published between 1972 and 1997, on the same subject. The analysis is based on an NPD model, developed to assess the impact on NPD of selected exogenous and endogenous factors to companies. Structured statistical methods have been employed to identify key similarities and differences. Although the general environmental, technological and market conditions were found to be similar in the US and the UK, and across different industrial sectors, significant differences were identified in performance, success rates and NPD practices which are presented in this paper.