The Antecedents and Consequences of Customer Knowledge Development in New Product Development

This study explored the position of the customer knowledge development in the new product development (NPD) process and the antecedents and consequences of the customer knowledge development. Customer knowledge development means that NPD teams created, integrated, and applied the knowledge about customers' need and preference in the NPD process. This study proposed customer knowledge development is composed of customer interaction process and team learning process. Most of the hypotheses are supported by the analyzing of 77 valid samples with PLS (partial least squares) model. These samples are from the survey done by Printed Circuit Boards and Power Supply of Taiwanese firms. The insightful implication in theory and practice are also discussed in this paper.