Examining proactive strategic decision-making flexibility in new product development

While reactive and proactive strategic flexibilities are widely accepted as prerequisites for a firm's success, their application in strategic decision-making flexibility to a firm's new product development (NPD) activities is limited to only a few studies. Furthermore, many organizations still have difficulties with the forms of strategic flexibility (reactive vs. proactive) in their decision-making process. Past research studies have largely ignored the relationship between strategic decision-making flexibility and firms' resources and/or capabilities and success in the context of NPD. This study advances strategic flexibility and best practice research streams by examining the role of strategic decision-making flexibility in translating organizational resources and capabilities (best practices) into NPD success. Hence, this study adopts the resources, capabilities (i.e. flexibility), performance paradigm to show how strategic decision-making flexibility plays a crucial role in opening-up new opportunities and complying with market needs. Our results show that the indirect effects of strategic planning, internal commitment and an innovative climate on NPD performance occur through strategic decision-making flexibility. Furthermore, long-term orientation is found to have both direct and indirect effects on NPD performance. In sum, resources and capabilities influence the flexibility in generating strategic choices in NPD, which in turn influence the outcomes affecting the NPD process. Our study therefore provides a valuable reference point for future research in strategic decision-making flexibility in NPD