ABSTRACT
Technological advancement and the creation of new and creative products are key driving forces of economic growth. Many studies have measured the relationship of creative and innovative products with the frms’ superior fnancial performances. 1 The results have mostly confrmed that creative products account for the lion’s share of the frms’ superior fnancial performance and growth. Interestingly, most of these studies have been set within the context of advanced industrial economies operating at the frontiers of technology, in particular the United States of America (USA). Despite the centrality of creative products to a frm’s competitive advantage and therefore its survival, the innovation management literature has given relatively little attention to the understanding of mechanisms of New Product Creativity (NPC) in Newly Industrialized Economies (NIEs). This is despite the fact that NIEs have grown so rapidly over the past forty years. 2 While frms in NIEs are by no means neglected, the weight of the discussion has so far focused on understanding NPC processes in the frms in Western culture.
In this article we discuss the essentiality of NPC and its impact on the frms’ competitive advantage in NIEs, focusing on Malaysia. That is, we ask whether the NPC concept is relevant to the Malaysian context. While the macro and micro 23economic variables in Malaysia are rather different from what exists in advanced industrial economies, we argue that because competition takes place on a global scale, the processes of developing unique and meaningful products and their importance to the frms’ competitive advantages have certain similarities. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we discuss the relationship between new product creativity and competitive advantage. Second, and more importantly, we discuss the idea that their relationship may, in fact, be more general. For example, because frm-level capabilities of accumulation and assimilation leads to technological development of industries and economies, 3 we explore the role and importance of new product creativity for competitive advantage at both the frm and national levels of analysis. That is, we argue for the importance of NPC specifcally to Malaysian frms as well as for Malaysia as a nation, in general. The analysis of national policies of technological progress suggests the move towards developing NPC at the frm level, and that this ultimately affects the national competitiveness of Malaysia. Finally, we provide implications for this perspective in the concluding section of the chapter.
