The Effect of Unsolicited Online Product Feedback Orientation on Product Development Success in the North American Consumer Electronics Industry

Product development organisations develop both new and improved products with hopes that these products will succeed in the highly competitive consumer electronics industry. However, this task has become increasingly difficult as this industry experiences with fierce competition, increased product costs and complexity, decreased time to market and increased customer awareness. One method for improving product development success that is yet to be adopted readily is the integration of unsolicited online product feedback (UOPF) that is found online in the form of virtual community, social network and blog/vlog posts, and online product reviews. This study first examined the state of the current research on the topic including how and why product development organisations are using UOPF. Second, a model of the direct and mediating effects of UOPF orientation (UOPFO) on the process and product dimensions of product development success was tested. Results indicate that UOPFO is a full mediator of the effect of customer orientation on process success. Conversely, UOPFO is a partial mediator of the effect of cross-functional integration on process success. As was found in previous studies, the effect of customer orientation on product success was only observed for marketing managers and not for R&D managers. Surprisingly, no effect of UOPFO on product success was observed. Ultimately, UOPF is still an under-researched source of customer feedback that warrants additional academic attention through studies such as the one presented in this thesis document.