Impact of Organisational Culture on New Product Success: an Empirical Study of Spanish Firms

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/emre.12116
• Published date: 01 December 2017
• Author: Daniel Jimenez‐Jimenez,Julia C. Naranjo‐Valencia,Raquel Sanz‐Valle
• Date: 01 December 2017

Impact of Organisational Culture on New

Product Success: an Empirical Study of

Spanish Firms

JULIA C. NARANJO-VALENCIA,

1

DANIEL JIMENEZ-JIMENEZ

2

and RAQUEL SANZ-VALLE

2

1

Departamento de Ingenieria Industrial, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Sede Manizales, Colombia

2

Department of Management and Finance, University of Murcia, Spain

Developing and commercialisingsuccessful products is crucialif a firm is to gain a lasting competitive edge. It is

widely held that organisational culture is a key determinant of new products success. Some studies suggest that

culture has a positive effect on the proficiency with which firms develop new product process, and that is what

explains its influence on new product success. However, empirical research on the mediating role of new product

process proficiency in the relationship between organisational culture and new product success isvery scarce. This

paper examines this mediating role, and tests it using a sample of 253 Spanish firms and applying Structural

equations modelling. Findings provide support to that hypothesis in the case of adhocracy and market cultures,

and show that adhocracy, in addition, has a direct effect on new product process proficiency. However, contrary to

our expectations no significant results were obtained for clan and hierarchy cultures.

Keywords: organisational culture; product innovation; new product success; new product development process

proficiency; mediation

Introduction

Developing new, different, and better products is a key

process for gaining competitive advantages and for

financial success (Hong et al., 2013; Walker et al.,

2015). However, new product development (NPD) can

be difficult and highly risky (Droge et al., 2008; Wong

and Tong, 2012). In this line, the study of Evanschitzky

et al. (2012) reveals that the market success rate of new

products stands below 25%.

Due to the relevance of new product (NP) success, it is

fundamental to ascertain factors that can foster it. One

factor that the literature holds to be determining is

organisational culture (Crossan and Apaydin, 2010;

Eisend et al., 2016; Wei and Morgan, 2004). It has been

widely accepted for some decades that organisational

culture plays a key role in the good functioning and

success of a company (Al-Swidi and Mahmood, 2011;

Walker et al., 2015). Yet the effect of culture on

innovation, and especially on product innovation, has

only recently received proper attention from researchers.

According to Nakata and Di Benedetto (2012), one issue

that requires deeper study is the role of organisational

culture in new product development (NPD).

Although culture is considered an important factor of

NP success, it has barely been broached in empirical

studies (Zhang and Duan, 2010; Enzing et al., 2011;

Eisend et al., 2016;).Furthermore, there is little discussion

on how organisational culture affects the success of NP.

At best, some culturaltrait has been addressed with regard

to NP success and the link between them has been

explainedby the effect of that culture traiton NPD process

proficiency. For instance, according Im and Workman

(2004) creativity has an effect on NP success of new

products and this effect can be explained by its influence

in the initial stage of the NPD insofar as creativity is the

source of original ideas.

Hence, the objective of this paper is to examine the

relation between different types of organisational culture

and the NP success. In particular, we explore the impact

of adhocracy, market, clan and hierarchy cultures on NP

success. The paper goes further and it also analyses

whether this relation is mediated by the proficiency with

which the NPD process is performed. Investigating this

mediating effect will enable us to understand the

Correspondence: Raquel Sanz-Valle, Department of Management and

Finance. Facultad de Economia y Empresa. Universidad de Murcia.

Espinardo.Murcia 30100, Spain. E-mail:raquel@um.es

European Management Review, Vol. 14, 377–390, (2017)

DOI: 10.1111/emre.12116

©2017 European Academy of Management