The Structural Relationship among Market Orientation, Information Sharing, New Product Development Flexibility, Product Modularization, and Development Performance of Chinese Fast Fashion Companies

Abstract

This study defines market orientation and strategic information sharing as essential aspects of new product development, and aims to understand how the comprehensive activities of these factors affect the flexibility and performance of new product development. In addition, it aims to address the importance of market orientation and information sharing in rapidly developing and launching new products for companies currently operating in the fashion industry. The results derived from are summarized as follows. First, it proved that market orientation had a statistically significant positive effect on the flexibility of new product development. Second, strategic information sharing had a positive effect on the flexibility of new product development. Third, it was confirmed that the mediating role of product modularization in the 'market orientation→product modularization→new product development flexibility' path was not statistically significant. Fourth, the mediating effect of product modularization in the 'strategic information sharing→product modularization→new product development flexibility' path was statistically significant. It recognized the importance of market orientation and information sharing in the rapid development and launch of new products to companies operating in the Chinese fashion industry, and ultimately provided useful implications for improving new product development performance through modularization of product production.