Introducing "product platforms" in companies to achieve competitive advantages, like decreased costs and increased product variety, is a widely recognized strategy in research and industry. Nevertheless, there are certain challenges involved in developing product platforms. In order to address...

This paper presents a literature review discussing empirical as well as conceptual papers concerning the CTO — the Chief Technology Officer — his tasks, responsibilities and authority and his relations with other corporate functions. It further presents first results of a CTO survey...

The new product development (NPD) process is frequently described as a sequence of information processing activities, but "information in NPD" occupies a broader conceptual space than the reduction of uncertainty. This article reviews the area of "information in NPD" by examining the literature...