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A pilot test is reported on a method for relating the degree of “newness” within a firm's portfolio of products and the firm's economic success. The embodied technology and market applications newness is measured in the sequences of 79 products developed and released by a sample of 10 small technology-based companies, each under 50 million in most recent sales. A two-dimensional “technology newness/market newness” grid is prepared for the product set of each firm, based on the conditions existent at the time of each product's development. Alternative weighting schemes are used to generate a “newness index” for each firm. The degree of “strategic focus” is shown to relate directly to corporate growth in that small firms with more restricted degrees of technological and market change in their successive products outperform companies with wide diversity. The evidence suggests, however, that some product “newness” is better than no “newness, ” and that more technological change can be effectively employed in small company product strategy than market change.
Meyer et al. (1986) studied this question.