Abstract

New product development (NPD) plays a significant role in maintaining competitive advantage and increasing market share. NPD is highly dependent on the existing knowledge of individuals within the company, which is shared and used to create new knowledge. Employees’ tacit knowledge is another significant source of know-how for companies. Craft knowledge – a form of tacit knowledge that includes material and hand-making knowledge – is transferable to industries through collaborative works. Since the management and design literatures on this subject do not meet on common ground, there is a lack of literature on this transfer. With this aim, we examined the transfer of craft knowledge to NPD in three industries: leather, glass, and furniture industries. Thirteen in-depth interviews were conducted with six companies. Interviews were analyzed through thematic analysis. Craft knowledge is transferred to industries during the idea generation and prototyping stages of NPD through problem-solving and suggesting materials and manufacturing techniques.

摘要

新产品开发 (NPD) 在保持竞争优势和增加市场份额方面发挥着重要作用。NPD 高度依赖于公司内部个人的现有知识，这些知识被共享并用于创造新知识。员工的隐性知识是公司专有技术的另一个重要来源。工艺知识——一种隐性知识形式，包括材料和手工制作知识——可以通过协作工作转移到行业。由于有关该主题的管理和设计文献没有共同点，因此缺乏有关此转移的文献。为此，我们研究了皮革、玻璃和家具行业这三个行业中工艺知识向 NPD 的转移。对 6 家公司进行了 13 次深度访谈。访谈采用专题分析法进行分析。在 NPD 的创意产生和原型设计阶段，工艺知识通过解决问题和建议材料和制造技术转移到行业。