The domain of New Product Development (NPD) is subject to considerable uncertainties.However, companies are required to manage the innovation process as efficiently as possible.The resulting conflicting demands often leave companies struggling to achieve both,efficiency as well as flexibility...

Analogies can trigger breakthrough ideas in new product development. Numerous examples demonstratethat substantial innovations often result from transferring problem solutions from one industry ordomain to another. For instance, the designers of the new running shoe generation of Nike,...

Our study focuses on the question, whether users should be intensively involved in the innovation process of radical product innovations or better not – from the manufacturer’s perspective. Radical innovations incorporate new technologies, shift market structures, require intensive user...

The aim of this paper is to describe front-end activities in practice and get first hints for effects of the front end on project outcome and the meaning of contextual factors.The results of an exploratory study of fourteen product development projects are contrary to the wide-spread opinion...

Structuring the innovation process and managing multifunctional teams is a basic prerequisite successful innovation. A well-structured process gives the possibility to implement effective multifunctional teamwork. Meanwhile, multifunctional teamwork helps to optimise and accomplish the...

This paper discusses the role that finance plays in promoting the capital development of the economy, with particular emphasis on the current situation of the United States and the United Kingdom. We define both "finance" and "capital development" very broadly. We begin with the observation that...

This paper develops a theoretical model of the inequality in wages and salaries associated with differences in years of schooling (educational inequality, for short). Our model assumes that in the long run individual decisions to become more educated equalize the lifetime earnings of more...

This paper considers the optimal design of dynamic research contests when the buyer can set time-dependent prizes. We derive the buyer-optimal contest and show that it entails an increasing prize schedule. Remarkably, this allows the buyer to implement a global stopping rule. In particular, the...