94 I PROD INNOV MANAG BOOK REVIEWS
1995;12:89-95
acquisition requirements. This first note is a very nice Johnson Wax-Enhance and General Mills-Yoplait,
essay and is supported by three cases dealing with new deal with the analysis and interpretation of consumer
product development in financial services (New York market research data. The third, Cumberland Metals,
Life Pension), business packaging materials (Sealed is far less well known possibly because of its heavy
Air), and consumer products (Henkel household engineering character. This reviewer finds Cumber-
glues). land to be particularly valuable as a written class as-
Parts 2 and 3 form the heart of this book. Part 2, signment, although prospective adopters are cautioned
entitled “Markets-based Guidelines for Product De- that this case once again seems to require analytical
sign and Positioning, ’ ’ consists of three notes and methodology (i.e., EVC calculations) that are not cov-
three cases. The notes here are managerial introduc- ered in the text notes. (The instructor’s manual does
tions to concept testing, perceptual mapping, and con- address this problem satisfactorily, however).
joint analysis respectively. The last-mentioned is by Part 4, the last section, consists of one note and one
far the longest of the three. There are wonderful if case. It addresses the topic of ‘ ‘Managing the Dynam-
elementary introductions to each topic that work well ics of Product Line Evolution.” The note here, the
in a wide variety of classroom situations. They allow only one not written by the book’s author, is Hauser
(indeed, almost demand) that the instructor offer sup- and Clausing’s classic Harvard Business Review
plementary materials, either from a researcher per- piece, “The House of Quality. ” This is a good
spective, an applications perspective, or both. choice, addressing in some detail the process of in-
The three cases in this section deal with electronic stalling quality function deployment (QFD) in an au-
fish finders (Techsonic), software (MSA), and desk- tomobile manufacturing situation. The case, Barco
top computers (Emergent Technologies). These cases Projection Systems, deals with the challenge of man-
are unusually rich in data. However, they are not so aging product line changes in a worldwide product and
much analytical challenges as illustrations and appli- market specialty situation. This is a relatively unique
cations of the research methodologies outlined in the case, dealing as it does with managing the direction
prior notes. Solving the first two cases also seems to and pace of technological product development in a
require something more in the way of technical prep- world of constrained resources and sophisticated com-
aration than is available from the notes introducing petition.
this section. The third case is really not so much a case Overall, this is a very nice managerially oriented
at all as an extended illustration of computer-based book on new product management. The notes provide
modeling of a relatively new product and market. This exceptionally clear introductions to complex subject
latter exposition works particularly well with more matter. The character of the cases is more of a mixed
experienced marketing students. bag, in some instances analytically demanding and in
Part 3, “Formulating the Market Introduction Strat- some, basically expositional in character. Prospective
em ” is composed of two notes and three cases. The adopters might want to consider using this book in
first note, dealing with researching and monitoring conjunction with another text or set of outside read-
consumer markets, covers purchase simulation proce- ings.
dures and the use of scanner data. Special attention is
Robert R. Rothberg
devoted in the first instance to BASES II and
Rutgers Graduate School of Management
ASSESSOR and in the second to A. C. Nielsen’s
SCANTRACK and IRIS Infoscan. This note is some-
National Innovation Systems: A Comparative Analy-
what thin descriptively and at least partially outdated.
sis, by Richard R. Nelson, Editor. New York: Oxford
The author can hardly be blamed for this: he is caught
University Press, 1993. 541 + x pages.
between his need to capture current marketing re-
search realities in consumer goods markets and the This book is the result of a collaborative research proj-
very rapid rate of change in information availabilities ect about different national approaches to technologi-
in this sector. cal innovation. The heart of the work consists of fif-
The second note in part 3, on the management of teen studies, cooperatively designed but individually
beta test sites in business markets is much more suc- written, as the editor phrases it, “to illuminate the
cessful in terms of completeness and currency. Like institutions and mechanisms supporting technical in-
all of the other notes, it is accompanied by a good novation in [these different] countries, . . . [their]
bibliography. Two of three cases in this section, similarities and differences . . . and how these came
BOOK REVIEWS J PROD INNOV MANAG 95
1995:12:8%95
tobe. . . ,” The international contributors to this book novation are cited and discussed. Here the recent tech-
represent a variety of backgrounds but can be grouped nological performance of US firms is critiqued and
roughly equally into one of four categories: university new approaches to the organization and financing of
p -ofessors of political science, economics or business, innovation are examined with special reference to the
0’ staff personnel of institutions such as the OECD or rise of global competition and the development of stra-
tI:e World Bank. tegic alliances.
This thrust of this book, is clearly description and This essay, like the others, contains a wealth of
cl.,mparison rather than theory-building and calibra- reasonably current statistics. It addresses a host of
ti:m. This particular approach is both a strength and a current policy concerns, including university-industry
weakness. One cannot help but be impressed by the research cooperation, industrial research in an era of
d versity of national aims and approaches to innova- massive structural change, and various new public
ti:)n represented in this book. As the editor indicates in policy initiatives in such areas a military and civilian
a pair of unusually good opening and closing essays, technology interchanges, intellectual property rights
it is difficult to generalize about this subject across and enforcement, and the merger of technology and
countries and over time. The partitioning of nationally trade policies. This thirty-five-page essay is accom-
oriented essays in this regard, however, is most in- panied by no less than eight pages of notes and three
structive: this includes “large high-income countries” pages of bibliography.
(USA, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, and Italy); This book, National Innovation Systems: A Com-
‘“;;maller high-income countries” (Denmark and Swe- parative Analysis, should serve as a standard reference
den., Canada, and Australia); and “lower-income on this subject for some time. One caution, however:
countries” (Korea, Taiwan, Brazil, Argentina, and no book of this kind can ever be truly comprehensive
Israel). or remain current for very long. There is no discus-
The authors of these articles in general provide good sion, for example, of innovation in the many nations
set-piece reviews of technological innovation in their in which the reader might have a special interest such
respective countries. The American piece by David as China, Singapore, or the former Soviet Union and
M owery and Nathan Rosenberg serves to illustrate the its East block allies. (However, the essay on Germany
point. They see the key traits of the US innovation does make some passing references to the challenge of
system as including its enormous scale and the relative economically integrating the GDR into the rest of the
importance of three key sectors: industry, academia, country). The half-life of policy-oriented books on
ar d the federal government. They make note of the innovation is also considerably shorter than books on
clanging importance and content of research in these more stable phenomena.
sectors over the past seventy years. Special attention is Overall, this book should serve as a good introduc-
aLo devoted to start-up firms in the postwar period in tion to how technological innovation is approached in
th: development and commercialization of new tech- the fifteen nations studied. It deserves a place on the
nclogies. The special character of US innovation is bookshelves of business enterprises operating R&D
al::0 discussed from the standpoint of national policy. facilities both at home and abroad, university and col-
Here, two public policies are seen as contributing lege libraries, and academic and other researchers with
heavily to the distinctiveness of the US system: anti- a special interest in the subject matter.
trust statutes and their enforcement, and the role of
mrlitary R&D and procurement. Robert R. Rothberg
Various measures of the “capabilities” of US in- Rutgers Graduate School of Management
