New service development: an analysis of 27 years of research

This study examines the state of the art in new service development (NSD) research published in the period between 1982, when the first NSD article appeared in an academic journal, and 2008. First, a multisource search was conducted, which resulted in the identification of 145 NSD-related articles. Then, a content analysis was performed of these articles using multiple classifier variables with regard to general publication characteristics, focus of the research, and the research methodology that was employed. By examining the results, a number of developments in and patterns of scholarly research in NSD are revealed. More specifically, it appears that the greatest attention in the early writings was on a narrow set of NSD topics like critical success factors and the NSD process, which were predominantly investigated through large-scale surveys with single respondents in the U.S., Canadian, and U.K. financial services industry. The analytical techniques that were used at that time were rather simple. In contrast, in recent NSD works there is an expansion of research topics (such as customer involvement and the organization of NSD) that are increasingly investigated in high-tech service industries in Europe through qualitative research designs. Also, multiple respondent studies have started to appear in NSD investigations, while analytical techniques have also become more advanced. This pattern clearly uncovers signs of increasing maturation for the NSD discipline. In addition, some underresearched areas are identified, leading to suggestions for future research into this growing and important field.