The Performance Impact of an International Orientation on Product Innovation

This research probed the impact of an international versus domestic new product strategy on new product success. The study used 123 successes and 80 new product failures in 125 industrial firms in Canada. Two international dimensions were hypothesised to be related to new product performance: (1) the degree to which the product was developed for international versus domestic use; and (2) target market selection — domestic versus nearest neighbour versus world market. Successful products were found to be more international in terms of product design and marketing activities and products developed for international markets were more successful on a number of performance measures. Firms that elected an export strategy for their new products (in particular, a strategy aimed at world markets and not only at nearest neighbours) and developed products for international markets did better in foreign as well as domestic markets.