National Culture and New Product Development: An Integrative Review

Abstract

The increasing globalization of markets and businesses and the criticality of new products to business performance make the relationship between national culture and new product development an important area for academic research and managerial practice. By means of a literature review, the authors attempt to provide an understanding of this relationship in terms of the links between new product development on the one hand and the five dimensions of national culture—individualism, power distance, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, and Confucian dynamic—on the other. They advance several propositions for additional research, develop a conceptual model, and identify directions for further exploration of the relationship.