New Product Development Creativity: A Data Envelopment Analysis Approach

Abstract

Innovation is critical for firm competitiveness and survival. A crucial part of innovation is team brainstorming and idea generation. Using a sample of one hundred and twenty-eight new product development managers in the United States, we examine communication factors that support the highest levels of efficiency for generating novel, useful, and manufacturable ideas during the initiation stage of the new product development process. The efficiency of new product development managers in achieving desirable creativity levels when examining these factors is assessed using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The study results provide practical recommendations to enhance team creative output by adjusting input values based on the performance of the most efficient units.