As new product development (NPD) process encompasses creative actions, so a new product is characterized by two essential dimensions used to describe any creative output – namely novelty and meaningfulness. Therefore, businesses are faced with the questions to what extent and under what market conditions to develop each of these dimensions in order to obtain high new product commercial performance. Based on gaps indentified in the new product literature and drawing on the resource-based view as well as signaling theory, this study addresses three following aims. The first one is to revisit the impact of a new product’s meaningfulness and novelty on its commercial performance; the second one is to compare the relative influence of these dimensions on this performance; and the third one is to examine the moderating effect of market turbulence on the relationship between the novelty and the new product’s commercial performance. These goals were achieved by analyzing data concerning 374 new products of Polish high- and medium-high-technology companies with the use of structural equation modeling. This study finds that a new product’s meaningfulness is positively related to its commercial performance, while novelty is not. Furthermore, meaningfulness affects this performance more strongly than product novelty. It is also found that market turbulence moderates the relation between the new product’s novelty and performance such that this association is stronger when market turbulence is high compared to when it is low. The paper concludes with theoretical and managerial implications about how firms can benefit and under what market conditions from creativity.
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