Strategic Market Change and new Product Development: The Case of the Italian Knitwear Sector

This research, drawing on the resource-based view, investigates how a firm’s market orientation resources and capabilities influence the firm’s international market selection between culturally close and distant markets and how the matching of marketing orientation and international market selection impacts on its international performance. In this paper the widening of international business from the perspective of small and medium sized enterprises has been studied, verifying the positioning (vertical specialization, diversification etc.) of international knitwear supply chains. This study intends to see if there is an awareness, especially regarding leader firms, that segmentation strategies require the adoption of both a bottom up and a top down approach, in order to benefit from the opportunities offered by the emergence of temporary micro segments, that also present different characteristics in varying geographical contexts, and assume original forms if they are served by adequate means of distribution. The objective of the study is to identify the innovative choices formulated with the aim of restructuring styling and design (planning of samples) and production activities. New product development practices (NPD) have been well studied for decades in large, established companies and in firms that have belonged only to particular manufacturer sectors. Because of the risks associated with missteps in new product development and the potential for firm failure, understanding NPD within these firms is critical. This study has been established in order to supply management with the conceptual categories that are necessary to interpret the positioning of the firm within the demand structure in order to make modifications (competitive repositioning strategies). Finally it also intends to supply indications regarding the evaluation of results attributed to the decision making processes of marketing. It is based on empirical research. Particular attention has been placed on the constitution of samples, only including firms that carry out design, engineering and production internally, and produce consistently in Italian plants. Only a few of the cases researched have delocalized sites abroad, through foreign direct investment (FDI), high or full equity. These plants have not substituted the domestic or original sites. The research has been carried out through a well-structured questionnaire, as well as through repeated visits to the firms’ research centers in the course of which the hypotheses for research amongst various area managers (marketing, styling, production, finance) are verified. As far as the methodology that has been adopted is concerned I would like to point out that in different phases both the inductive and deductive methods (with a prevalently positive-interpretative approach) have been used.