文档介绍：Helena Yli-Renko & Ramkumar Janakiraman
How Customer Portfolio Affects New
Product Development in Technology-
Based Entrepreneurial Firms
This article focuses on how the customer portfolios of technology-based entrepreneurial firms affect new product
development. Drawing on knowledge-based, resource dependence, and relational theories, the authors argue that
the impact of a firm’s customers on new product development depends on the size and relational embeddedness
of the customer portfolio and the extent to which the firm is dependent on one or a few dominant customers for a
majority of its revenues. The authors test the research model using longitudinal data on young firms operating in
business-to-business markets in six technology-based industries. The results indicate that customer portfolio size
has an inverse U-shaped relationship to the number of new products developed and that the more relationally
embedded the customer set, the more new products the firm develops. Dependence stemming from revenue
concentration has a negative impact on new product output. Furthermore, the authors find that relational
embeddedness pensate for too small of a customer portfolio and can help offset the negative effects of a
highly concentrated portfolio. These results make important theoretical and empirical contributions to the new
product development literature, helping uncover some of the antecedents of innovative productivity particularly
relevant for young, technology-based firms. The results also contribute to the broader discourse on how customers
affect new product development.
Keywords: new product development, customer portfolio, entrepreneurial firms, relational embeddedness, resource
dependence
irms introduce new products to petitive and However, these factors are of limited relevance for
to meet the constantly changing market needs. The young firms. Such firms are typically small, do not have
Fability to develop new products is particularly