Management and organization of the early phases of the new product development process - an empirical cross-country comparison

How can the early phase of innovation processes be efficiently structured? Are there internationally valid best practice solutions to this problem? Coordination and incentive structures in innovation projects of 79 major companies in Japan and Germany are compared to address these questions. The results show strong functional specialization, decentralized incentives and lower concept respronsibility for the German companies, contrasted by over-functional areas of expertise and centralization of decision rights regarding incentives and concept change on the project manager on the Japanese companies. These organizational differences can be coherently explained by transaction cost analysis show that influential project managers and the use of codetermination are the strongest characteristics for the Japanese, and the use of consultation for the German group. Additionally, early determination of areas of expertise within teams and a high degree of co-determination seem to yield a significantly higher success rate regardless of national background