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Reports the product innovation activities of 30 British manufacturing SMEs, all with aggressive growth ambitions. Shows that ten of these companies meet their aims by repeatedly introducing innovative new products that open up new market niches, which they successfully exploit. This is seen to contrast with the remaining, larger group that performs less well by introducing incremental improvement products into their current markets only. A longitudinal study identifies managerial approaches typical to the more successful group. These include a multi‐functional approach to decision making and the use of market and competitor analysis in strategic product planning. This is supported by effective cross company communication of decisions and plans. Concludes that this combination of approaches offers ambitious small firms a potentially powerful competitive advantage over their larger rivals.
Mosey et al. (Wed,) studied this question.