BSA 5101 Business Research Methods

Exercise for using Endnote 4.0

Prepared by Charlie Huang
In-class Endnote Exercise: You are required to enter the references in your Endnote
library and then to format the sample paper in the APA style.

The New Product Development Process and the Internet: An

Exploratory Examination
The role of the Internet in business activities has recently attracted increasing attention
from various sources, including government, industry and academia, as evidenced by the
large number of publications on this subject. McEachern and OKeefe regarded the
Internet as a business enabler. the Internet has been suggested as something that will
affect business operations, marketing, customer relations, inter-firm relationships, and
exporting. Yet little research effort has been devoted to the potential role of the Internet
in the new product development (NPD) process. Rayport and Sviokla regarded the
Internet as a virtual marketplace, or marketspace. This, coupled with its
communication capability as the information superhighway and its ability to store vast
amounts of information, has made the Internet a potential means of resolving some longstanding problems in the NPD process. Commercialization, communication and
information acquisition have been identified as critical factors influencing new product
performance.
The purpose of this paper is to empirically explore the use of the Internet in the NPD
process. Specifically, it is to address the following research questions:
1. How is the Internet being used by Australian manufacturing industries, particularly
small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)?
2. How useful is the Internet for the various activities prescribed in the NPD process?
3. What perceived advantages do business managers see in using the Internet for the
NPD process?
4. What problems do managers have in using the Internet in the NPD process.
This paper is organized as follows: literature on the role of the Internet and the NPD
process is first reviewed. The research method used in this study is then described,
followed by the presentation and discussion of the findings. Finally, some managerial
implications are outlined.

Literature Review
The Characteristics of the Internet
Much has been written from various perspectives about why the Internet has potential
impacts on business. Although numerous features of the Internet have been identified as
contributing to this potential, several of them have so far stood out, including the Internet
as a virtual market, an information sea and a vehicle for communication.
The Internet as a virtual market. The overall size of the Internet users is the first
characteristics that makes the Internet valuable to business. Despite that the Internet has
been publicly available since 1992, the number of the Internet users had reached 60
million in 1998 and projected to reach 143 million by the year 2002. A substantial
proportion of businesses have also connected to the Internet. For example, 82 per cent of
medium-sized businesses and 48 per cent of small businesses in Australia have reported
using the Internet by February 1999.
The demographics of the Internet users point to the value of the Internet as a marketspace
to business. According to a recent survey of over 5,000 Internet users, 53.6 per cent of
the users aged between 21 to 40 and a majority (56.4%) of the users had an annual
household income of more than 40,000 US dollars. Because of the overall size and the
rapid increase of consumers and businesses connected to the Internet, the Internet
commerce has generated more than 100 billion dollars in USA according to a recent study
conducted by the University of Texas. Therefore, this virtual market has become
increasingly attractive and lucrative to businesses.
The ubiquity, convenience and low cost of access and conducting business in the virtual
market make it more enticing to consumers and businesses. The Internet can be virtually
accessed from anywhere in the world and is available anytime and the cost of getting into
the Internet is relatively low. The US Congress has long predicted that the Internet will
serve as the market. Some scholars have vividly drawn an analogy between the Internet
market and electronic trade shows and flea markets.
The Internet as an information sea. Although the Internet is still in its infancy and
evolving, the World Wide Web (WWW), an important entity of the Internet, can store
boundless amounts of information. It is estimated that hundreds of million pages of
information have already been placed on the WWW. One unique feature of the WWW is
that business, consumers and government organizations can post commercially-oriented
information on it. Huang, Soutar and Brown have found that many SMEs use The
Internet for information seraching in their NPD. In addition, the information is current,
easily accessed and mostly free of charge. Therefore, the Internet is an excellent source
of information

References