Customer orientation for decreasing time-to-market of new products: IT implementation as a complementary asset

To extend new product development (NPD) research, this study proposes and tests a theory of complementarities between information technology (IT) implementation and customer orientation. In addition, this study provides a fine-grained analysis of associations between various aspects of customer orientation and time-to-market of new products. The data comes from 176 manufacturing companies in China. This study tests the hypotheses that three dimensions of customer orientation shorten time-to-market of new products, and IT implementation moderates the relationship between customer orientation and time-to-market of new products. Regression results indicate that (1) customer focus, customer involvement and communication with customers have significantly negative effects on time-to-market of new products; (2) IT implementation plays a role of complementary asset to customer involvement and communication with customers. We discuss the implications of the findings for a contingency theory of time-to-market reduction through customer orientation, for future research and for managerial practices.