Mc Nally et al. (2007) associated managers
’personality traits with projects evaluation criteria weightings.
Criteria used to evaluate the firm’s
portfolio of new product projects can be split in 3 broad dimensions:
-
Value maximization (eg ROI)
-
Balance (mix of NPD is
proportional across multiple concerns e.g. completion date, technical risk,
ROI, innovativeness – radical v. incremental)
-
Strategic fit (project
alignment with firm strategy)
Managers’ personality traits fall into the
following categories (Mc Nally et al., 2007):
-
Change resistance (routine
seeking, negative emotional reaction, short-term thinking, focus on immediate
inconvenience, closed-mindedness)
-
Ambiguity tolerance (ability to
accept the absence of information on the range and probability of outcomes)
-
Analytic cognitive style (style
in problem solving / low analytic cognitive style are more holistic, high
cognitive analytical style break down problems in a set of underlying causal
relationships)
-
Leadership style (propension to
lead democratically or autocratically)
Relationships
-
Balance dimension: there are multiple
concerns to balance (e.g. time frame, technical risk, project innovativeness,
resource availability, return, etc.). Analytic
cognitive style plays a role because it relates to the ability to break
down complex problems into components and evaluate each of the component’s
impact.
-
Strategic fit dimension: Moving away
from incremental innovation requires
high ambiguity tolerance. The more
ambiguity tolerance, the more the strategic fit dimension involves examination
of latent customer needs to develop non-incremental new products.
Evaluative
dimension weighting in new product portfolio management: value maximization, balance and strategic fit
are given different emphasis depending on the leadership style. Autocratic
leadership limits new projects to those with high success probabilities. The
more democratic the leadership style, the more likely the NPPM evaluative
dimensions will exhibit equal weightings.
