Design Push Approach: Integrated Design Focus and New Product Success

The products of some firms emerge neither from a technology push nor a market pull perspective, but rather from a design push approach. If there are multiple routes to product development strategic complements or substitutes for achieving superior new product performance? We identify integrated design focus, the firm's ability to effectively integrate functionality, aesthetics and meaning in its products and develop hypotheses relating 1) design, market orientation, technological orientation and willingness to cannibalize to new product performance and 2) antecedents of integrated design focus. We use data from marketing executives in 252 US strategic business units to test the hypotheses. We find that increases in integrated design focus, technological orientation, and market orientation improve new product performance. In addition, market orientation interacts negatively with the effect of integrated design focus (they are strategic substitutes) while willingness to cannibalize interacts positively (strategic complements) to affect new product performance.  Marginal effects analysis indicates that most firms can improve their new product performance by increasing their integrated design focus capability and decreasing the role of market insights in product development.  Integrated design focus requires management to advocate product design, especially in design intensive environments and empower product designers.