Abstract

While we observe a growing interest in the role of market information in new product development (NPD), existing research has still largely ignored the quality of market information that is a crucial issue in the era of the information society. What does affect the quality of market information in new product development projects, and how does this quality influence the financial performance of new products? In this paper, we address these questions and hypothesize that sources of information (e.g. customers, competitors) influence the quality of market information, and this quality affects new product financial performance through market predictability as a mediator. We test these hypotheses using data of about 287 new product projects of medium-high and high technology firms from Poland. Our findings indicate that the key sources that influence market information quality are customers and competitors. More intensive collection of market information from these two sources, and especially from customers, will result in this information being of a higher quality. Surprisingly, gathering market information from other market entities (e.g. suppliers, distributors) has no effect on the quality of market information. We also find that an important consequence of high quality market information available in NPD is high new product financial performance. Additionally, market information quality positively influences market predictability that, in turn, has a positive impact on new product performance. Our results support a partial mediation effect of market predictability between the quality of market information and NPD financial performance. Based on these findings, the author discusses the theoretical and managerial implications of this work and proposes paths for future research

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