Market-Oriented Product Development as an Organizational Learning Capability: Findings from Two Cases

This paper deals with the concept of market-oriented product development. It answers the question what exactly makes product development market-oriented. Market orientation from a combined cognitive and behavioral perspective is integrated with product development. A conceptual framework is developed, describing market-oriented product development as an organizational learning capability at the level of the individual stages and at the level of the holistic process. Two in-depth case studies at large firms give further substance to this framework. We argue that market-oriented product development requires a basic understanding of the need for market information, the kind of market information which is needed, the way it is obtained, and the way it is intertwined with technical information. Furthermore, market and technical information-processing activities seem necessary to generate this basic understanding and to create new products. As a consequence market-oriented product development is more about the quality of these activities rather than the extent to which these activities are performed.