of place products, methods for generating newideas and the major problems they experienced.Parallels between the NPD behaviour of non-profit urban regeneration organisations manag-ing projects involving widespread change andthat previously observed among for-profit or-ganisations engaged in the development ofradically new products were investigated.

INTRODUCTIONA ‘place’ within an urban conurbation isa specific location, a set of physicalcharacteristics (civic amenities, commer-cial and industrial sites, types and calibresof housing etc) and a social milieu thatgenerates a certain quality of life forresidents.1 Places in cities are ‘products’ inthe sense that ‘they supply labour, landand buildings, infrastructure, services, astore of knowledge and expertise, andless tangible but importantly, cultureand traditions to local people’.2 It fol-lows that the authorities responsible fordeveloping city places (eg economicdevelopment agencies, urban regenera-tion corporations, business/communityimprovement partnerships, local govern-ment area redevelopment departments)must, even though they operate through

Roger Bennett is a professor and Head ofthe Centre for Marketing Research at LondonMetropolitan University. His main research in-terests are in the field of nonprofit market-ing communications. Roger is the author of alarge number of books and many journal paperson various aspects of marketing and businessmanagement.

Sharmila Savani is a lecturer in businessstudies at Harrow College, London. At the timethe present study was completed she was aresearch assistant in the Department of Busi-ness and Service Sector Management at Lon-don Metropolitan University.

ABSTRACT

The new product development (NPD) activitiesof 14 not-for-profit urban regeneration or-ganisations in three cities (London, Copen-hagen and Boston) were examined to establishthe degree to which they reflected the bestpractices recommended by the academic NPDliterature in the for-profit field. Executives ineach organisation were questioned about thestages of the NPD process that they activatedmost intensively, relationships between market-ing staff and technical urban developmentspecialists, mechanisms for consulting end users

Papers

New product development practices ofurban regeneration units: A comparativeinternational study

Roger Bennett* and Sharmila Savani*Department of Business and Service Sector Management, London MetropolitanUniversity, 84 Moorgate, London EC2M 6SQ, UKTel: �44 (0)20 7320 1577; Fax: �44 (0)20 7320 1465; e-mail: r.bennett@londonmet.ac.uk

Received (in revised form): 11th February, 2004

International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing Volume 9 Number 4

Page 291

International Journal of Nonprofitand Voluntary Sector Marketing,Vol. 9 No. 4, 2004, pp. 291–308.�Henry Stewart Publications,1479–103X

nonprofit organisations, be concernedwith the development of new products. Inprinciple therefore, managers of urbanrenovation programmes should be keenlyinterested in the theory and practice ofnew product development (NPD).

The products created by urbanregeneration units are increasingly diverseand sophisticated, as it has long beenrecognised that simply constructing officeblocks, shopping centres and manufactur-ing premises for rent or low-cost purchaseis rarely sufficient to rejuvenate an area.3–5

Experience in several countries suggeststhat although such activities attract daytimetraffic, the districts concerned becomedeserted in the evenings, unattractive asplaces of residence, and tend only toemploy people who commute fromoutlying suburbs.6 Hence, the modernapproach is to try to make a location adesirable place in which to live (as well asone in which to invest and developindustrial activity) and a place thatoutsiders will want to visit for shoppingand social and recreational purposes.7,8

Accordingly, an urban regenerationprogramme might devote as muchattention to, for example, removinggraffiti, laying flower beds and refurbish-ing facades as it does to advertising(publicly financed) conversions of oldwarehouses into cheap business premises.The availability of parks, libraries,swimming pools, theatres and museumsmay be deemed as important as thecreation of new manufacturing premises,car parks and convention centres.

Successes achieved during the 1980sand 1990s by UK (state-funded andnot-for-profit) Urban Development Cor-porations (UDCs) in these respects were(according to the UK Department of theEnvironment, Transport and the Regions[DETR])9 quite impressive. The remitsof the UDCs included (in additionto housebuilding and property develop-

ment) general environmental improve-ment, the restoration of existing buildings,the creation of agreeable surroundings,the attraction of new industry (par-ticularly small firms), and ensuring thatsocial facilities were available to en-courage people to live and work in thearea. Consequently, the place productsdeveloped by UDCs were varied andadventurous. For example, the UDC forLeeds developed the Brewery WharfMuseum and Visitor Centre, relocated theRoyal Armouries Museum, created anature reserve with associated recreationalfacilities, built houses along the riverfrontage, and established a shopping malland a business and industrial park.9 Similarprojects were undertaken by the UDC forCentral Manchester, which, in addition,constructed a major concert hall and acanal-basin complex of leisure and culturalactivities. Bristol UDC improved river-banks and restored a Victorian railwaystation.

Despite the obvious importance of thesubject, the mechanisms whereby ur-ban redevelopment organisations actuallydevelop city place products, and thefactors that determine these mechanisms,have rarely been studied. The presentpaper seeks to contribute to contem-porary knowledge about these matters bypresenting the results of an investigation ofthe NPD practices of 14 nonprofiturban redevelopment organisations inthree countries: Britain, Denmark andthe USA. International research intocity place management is vital be-cause places increasingly compete witheach other across national frontiers10 andseek to attract foreign investors andother stakeholders. Moreover, the lessonslearned from a comparative internationalstudy of this nature can help establishwhether certain NPD practices may beusefully applied to not-for-profit situa-tions.

New product development practices of urban regeneration units

Page 292

attract financially better off people, bigbusinesses, and cultural and entertainmentamenities that cater for these groups. Inthis case, city place NPD activities willfocus on developing an area’s internationallinks and orientation,11 technology in-frastructures and ancillary commercialservices, and on attracting upmarket (andexpensive) restaurants, high-brow culturalattractions and so on. On the other hand,the interests of pre-existing residents maybe regarded as paramount. For instance,Hansen et al. (2000)12 recorded how,during the 1980s, the London Borough ofNewham was adamant that all investmentsin the area be connected to the localcommunity, that any new jobs createdmatch the skills and qualifications of thelocal workforce, and that local peoplethemselves understand and actively pursueemerging opportunities. Ultimately, there-fore, city managers must decide whichgroups their products will favour andwhich particular categories of residentthey wish to nurture.

Such considerations mean that assess-ments of the ‘success’ of an urbanregeneration programme are subjectiveand will vary according to the group askedto undertake the rating. Property owners,for instance, will be highly satisfied withprojects that boost real estate prices.Conversely, pre-existing residents facingeviction in consequence of escalating rentsensuing from rising property prices areunlikely to share this view. Incoming retailand other enterprises that attract additionalbusiness thanks to the development ofnew place products will rate the perfor-mances of these products favourably.Yet householders (immigrants or in-digenous) who face more traffic conges-tion, environmental pollution and securityproblems because of expansions in aplace’s business activities might assess theperformance of these same place productsin negative terms.

CONTROVERSIAL NATURE OFCERTAIN URBAN REGENERATIONPROJECTSWarnaby and Davies5 characterised themarketing of a city location as the offer ofurban activities to the buying public.The specific activities ‘on sale’ follow-ing an urban regeneration programmewill be the result of conscious decisionstaken by the managers of the organisa-tion responsible for developing the area,and opportunity costs will have beeninvolved. Many city places have multiplestakeholders (pre-existing residents, newresidents, business investors, domestic andforeign visitors, retailers, owners of sport-ing and leisure venues etc) and conflictsamong them might occur. DETR (1998)9

reported ‘running battles’ between localresidents and business interests over cer-tain proposals for the redevelopment ofsome areas, and noted how ‘resident com-munities’ did not always experience thebenefits of regeneration programmes asmuch as newcomers, tourists, visitors andothers from outside. Also, a district mightcontain a population that is extremelydiverse in terms of ethnicity, country oforigin, culture, social class, income, life-style and type of employment. There maybe little sense of community, unity ofpurpose or common interest among thevarious groups, each of which will con-sume a different bundle of urban servicesand hence will want disparate things fromthe ‘city product’.3,5

Urban regeneration programmes im-prove an area’s attractiveness, bring in newresidents, and are thus likely to causesubstantial increases in housing and otherproperty values. Pre-existing residents(many of whom may be poor and live incheap rented accommodation) can nolonger afford to live in the area and areforced to attempt to move out. Thismight be a matter of indifference to citydevelopers4 who could be seeking to

Bennett and Savani

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RELEVANCE OF NPD THEORY TOPLACE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENTAcademic research into NPD has beenextensive13–17 and generally has soughtto discover the organisational, strategicand process-related factors that charac-terise NPD activities. Much attention hasbeen devoted to the analysis of the NPDprocess as certain process formats allegedlycorrelate with successful NPD.17 The mostbasic and familiar process model of NPD,and the one upon which, according toAvlonitis and Papastathopoulou,17 nearlyall others are based, is that of Booz, Allenand Hamilton Inc.,18 the latest (1982)version of which posits seven sets of NPDactivities:

— new product strategy development, iethe determination of a clear set ofobjectives or strategic focus for thenew offering

— idea generation— idea screening and evaluation— analysis of the costs and benefits of the

new offering (ie ‘business analysis’)— design and development of the new

offering— operational and market testing— introduction of the product and the

evaluation of its performance.

Certain sets of activities may be completedsequentially (the so-called ‘departmen-tal-stage’ approach) or simultaneously(the ‘parallel processing’ model).13 Thedepartmental stage approach requiresvarious departments or functions tocomplete specific NPD tasks and then ‘passthe parcel’ to someone else. Thus, ideas aregenerated in one section, feasibilities areassessed in another, marketing is drawn inat the end of the process to plan and carryout the launch. This method has beencriticised for being time-consuming, fornot generating useful feedback andfor failing to foster ‘ownership’ of

new products.19 The alternative (parallelprocessing) model focuses on iterationswithin and between stages. Paralleliterations supposedly encourage beneficialmultidisciplinary activities. Hart andBaker19 emphasised the need for parallelprocessing approaches to integrate market-ing and technical developmental activities,to promote cross-functional informationsharing, and to consult at the outset withcustomers and other interested externalparties.

Successful NPDSuccessful NPD processes are allegedlyformal,20,21 with information regardingNPD being communicated throughoutthe organisation22 and (crucially) withcross-functional integration.20,23 The in-tegration of marketing and technicaldevelopment personnel has been reportedto represent an especially importantcritical success factor.24 Moenaert andSouder24 cited a large number of studiesnarrating instances of disharmony be-tween marketing and technical person-nel, including differences in language,personality and value systems, ‘cul-tural thought worlds’ and organisationalresponsibilities (including reward systems).Integration between the two sides mightbe achieved through a variety of devices,including direct contacts, task forces,liaison roles, dyads comprising a technicalperson and a marketer working jointly andautonomously, job rotation, or via thecreation of boundary-spanning cross-functional teams.25 Evidence from thecorporate sector in the USA has suggestedthat most ‘best practice’ firms usedmultifunctional teams for NPD, thoughwithout implementing team-based rewardsystems.16 The preferred modus operandiappeared to be a multifunctional ‘stagegate’ approach with formally documentedprocesses involving overlapping stages andrelatively fluid boundaries between them.

New product development practices of urban regeneration units

Page 294

NPD than their North American counter-parts, did more pre-development workand were more inclined to use multifunc-tional teams. A critical source of nationaldifferences in NPD practices, accord-ing to Garrett et al.,28 is the im-pact of national culture on the internalworkgroup dynamics of the teams respon-sible for various NPD activities. Garrett etal.’s comparison of NPD practices inSingapore and New Zealand revealedsubstantial national cultural differencesthat affected team communications, taskorientation, conformity, hierarchical sys-tems, centralisation and consultation.28

Analogously, Kleinschmidt27 reported anumber of studies which concluded thatJapanese national culture encouraged lowlevels of functional specialisation, whichin turn improved innovative efficiency;whereas in the USA a strong notion ofprofessionalism tended to separate techni-cal from non-technical experts.

Research methodAs the NPD practices of nonprofit urbanregeneration organisations have (to thebest of the authors’ knowledge) neverbeen previously investigated, a purelyexploratory research methodology wasadopted without specifying any priorpropositions or hypotheses. Informationwas collected via in-depth interviews withat least two people in each of the 14organisations considered (see the Ap-pendix). Letters were sent to relevantmanagers outlining the nature and objec-tives of the project and stating that afollow-up telephone call would requestinterviews with that individual plus oneother manager heavily involved in NPD.In six cases the chief executive delegatedthe task to someone else. Typical job titlesof interviewees who were not chiefexecutives, directors or general managerswere senior planner, project leader, seniorprogramme manager, or regeneration

Applications to city place productdevelopmentThe present research sought to establishwhether the approaches to NPD com-monly adopted in the commercial worldwere applied, explicitly or implicitly, toa particular form of nonprofit activity,namely urban regeneration. A primaryaim was to identify which of the stagesdescribed in conventional NPD modelswere most and least emphasised, and toaccount for differences (if any) betweenorganisations and countries. Note thaturban regeneration that involves radicalchanges in the character of an area isthe place development equivalent of thecreation of a ‘really new’ product bya commercial organisation. NPD theorypredicts that certain stages of the develop-ment process will receive greater em-phasis when really new products are beingdeveloped, while others might be safelyignored.17

THE STUDYThis was an international study thatexamined the NPD activities of fivenonprofit urban regeneration programmesin Denmark (Copenhagen), five in theUSA (Boston) and four in the UK(London). A number of prior empiricalstudies have concluded that nationaldifferences can exert major influences onthe ways in which NPD is managed.26

In particular, Kleinschmidt’s review27 ofprevious research literature concerningthe influences of national culture onNPD noted investigations which foundthat culture has the potential to affectteamwork and cooperation, levels ofmanagement support, the nature of theinformation exchanged between depart-ments, attitudes towards cost control andpersonal relationships within hierarchies.Kleinschmidt himself found that Europeanfirms adopted more formal approaches to

Bennett and Savani

Page 295

New product development practices of urban regeneration units

Page 296

Tab

le1:

Unit

char

acte

rist

ics

L1

L2

L3

L4

(a)

Num

ber

ofem

ploy

ees

6FT

�3

PT8

FT16

FT30

FT(b

)N

ewpr

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tsde

velo

ped

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ayim

prov

emen

ts.

Dev

elop

men

tof

the

rest

aura

ntse

ctor

.Li

brar

yim

prov

emen

t.St

reet

mar

ket

impr

ovem

ent.

Wor

ksp

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deve

lopm

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me

prev

entio

npr

ogra

mm

es.

Smal

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sines

sde

velo

pmen

t.R

enov

atio

nof

build

ings

Tra

nspo

rtin

terc

hang

eim

prov

emen

ts.

Tour

ismde

velo

pmen

t.Im

prov

emen

tof

open

publ

icsp

aces

.D

evel

opm

ent

offe

stiv

als.

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shm

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ldin

gre

nova

tion.

Hou

sing

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me

prev

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n

(c)

Fund

ing

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t.E

urop

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Nat

iona

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nal

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(DT

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ent

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es

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men

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(d)

Bon

ussy

stem

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vidu

alPR

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divi

dual

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Non

eIn

divi

dual

PRP

(e)

Who

deal

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ting?

Ext

erna

lco

nsul

tant

wor

king

one

day

aw

eek

Am

arke

ting

depa

rtm

ent

Aco

mm

unic

atio

nsm

anag

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com

mun

icat

ions

depa

rtm

ent

(f)

Doe

sth

eun

itco

mm

issio

npr

ofes

siona

lm

arke

tre

sear

ch?

No

No

Yes

Yes

C1

C2

C3

C4

C5

(a)

Num

ber

ofem

ploy

ees

14FT

2FT

10FT

5FT

2FT

(b)

New

prod

ucts

deve

lope

dH

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gim

prov

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t.D

evel

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ent

ofre

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outle

ts.

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es

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impr

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prev

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npr

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tral

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(d)

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(PT

)A

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No

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No

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No

Bennett and Savani

Page 297

Tab

le1:

Continued

B1

B2

B3

B4

B5

(a)

Num

ber

ofem

ploy

ees

10FT

15FT

3FT

4FT

�1

PT2

FT

(b)

New

prod

ucts

deve

lope

dH

ousin

gim

prov

emen

t.R

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bish

men

tof

build

ings

.St

reet

impr

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ent.

Park

s

Hou

sing

impr

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ent.

Stre

etm

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prov

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t

Ref

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shm

ent

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term

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s.Im

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cultu

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amen

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atth

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prov

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prov

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port

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s.St

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sing

impr

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(c)

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men

tLo

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tpl

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and

prop

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cal

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one

Non

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Non

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hode

als

with

mar

ketin

g?A

mar

ketin

gde

part

men

tA

pres

sre

latio

nsof

fice

No

one

Apu

blic

rela

tions

depa

rtm

ent

No

one

(f)

Doe

sth

eun

itco

mm

issio

npr

ofes

siona

lm

arke

tre

sear

ch?

No

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Not

es:

PRP

�pe

rfor

man

cere

late

dpa

y;PT

�pa

rttim

e;FT

�fu

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e;D

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dean

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ry

manager. The main characteristics of the14 organisations are shown in Table 1.Apart from B2, all the organisations hadbroadly similar terms of reference, focus-ing on housing and transport improve-ment, building refurbishment, businessdevelopment and measures to improve thequality of life in an area. The activitieslisted in Table 1(b) derive from replies toa request to the interviewees to state whatthey believed to be the dominant pursuitsof their units (as opposed to the placeproducts described in promotional litera-ture).

All the interviews were taped andfollowed a loose but semi-structuredformat whereby the interviewee deter-mined the emphasis given to varioustopics. The comments of the intervieweeswere initially coded in accordance withthe case replication strategy recommendedby Yin.29 Thus, the first (UK) case wasexamined in depth and successive (UKand foreign) cases then studied to establishwhether the responses found in the firstmatched patterns evident in subsequentcases. Clusters of similar comments onspecific matters were then identifiedand recorded. (The QSR NU-DIST 4package was used to code and analyse theresponses.) A schematic overview of theissues explored during the interviews ispresented in Figure 1.

FINDINGS

Background and organisationTwo of the Copenhagen organisations (C2and C5) and three of the Boston units(B3 and B5) only had two or threededicated employees, but were em-bedded in larger and wider-ranging localgovernment bodies (the CopenhagenKvarterloftsekretariatet and the BostonRedevelopment Authority) from whichthey could (and did) draw additional

resources and staff. Similar situationsapplied to the four London organisations,so the figures cited in Table 1(a) under-state the effective sizes of the workforcesinvolved. Apart from C2, which wasfinanced mainly by a grant from thenational Danish Government, all theorganisations in all three countries reliedheavily on local government funding.Only one of them (B5) was reported notto employ formal systems for generatingideas for and about new place products.(Interviewees in one of the London unitsclaimed that their idea generation proce-dures were informal, but this did notaccord with their descriptions of the[highly structured] processes they actuallyapplied.) Examples of the procedures usedto obtain ideas for new products includedformally constituted meetings with localgovernment officials (L4, C2, B2, B4);open public meetings (C1, C3, B1, B4);focus groups (L1, C4); distribution ofquestionnaires to local businesses (C4); theemployment of external consultants (L4,C4); and, in nearly all cases, internalbrainstorming sessions (L3 operated staffaway days for this purpose). Formallyconstituted procedures were deemed im-portant because they ‘impose a disciplineon the process’ (Copenhagen respondent);‘make sure we always get a result’(London chief executive); and ‘stop uswalking round and round the mulberrybush’ (Boston senior planner).

Seven of the 14 organisations reported,without a prompt, that they formallymonitored happenings in urban regenera-tion units in other cities and/or foreigncountries in order to obtain new ideas forplace products. One of the London inter-viewees noted how ‘we monitor similarprojects in other places’ (foreign as well asdomestic) ‘to find out what worked, andmore importantly what did not work,elsewhere so we can learn from the mis-takes of others’. Another commented on

New product development practices of urban regeneration units

Page 298

declined to discuss this matter). Three ofthe London organisations nominated thechief executive; the fourth specified the‘Board’ (largely composed of local busi-ness people).

The NPD processThe interviewees were asked about thestages (defined as ‘pre-identified bundlesof activities’) involved in the placeproduct development process. It emergedthat there was a remarkable degree ofconsistency in the descriptions of theNPD process offered by all the inter-viewees in all the units. NPD wasgenerally managed via cross-functionalmultidisciplinary teamworking, with dis-tinct and documented stages to the NPDprocess and fuzzy borders between thestages. ‘Gates’ were passed (ie work wasformally transferred across pre-identifiedsectional boundaries) although people oneither side of a particular gate would

how ‘it’s really great to communicate withpeople in other cities and talk about theproblems we all face’ and to get the latestideas. This ‘global’ rather than ‘local’dimension of the interviewees’ approachto nonprofit NPD work was partiallyexplained perhaps by the fact that a num-ber of the interviewees mentioned theclose similarity of the circumstances, dif-ficulties and challenges faced by urbanregeneration projects throughout the in-dustrialised world. Thus, continuous ob-servation of how common issues weredealt with by other units obviously madea lot of sense. Interviewees were askedto state which factor they regarded asthe most important and influential whengenerating new ideas. Respondents infour of the five Boston organisations andthree of the five Copenhagen organisa-tions said that local government offi-cials exerted the heaviest influence (oneCopenhagen and one Boston organisation

Figure 1 Theinterview schedule

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NPDprocesses

Influences

• Backgrounds of personnel

• Degree of innovativeness

• Levels of risk and uncertainty

• Current and potential stakeholders

• Funding bodies

• Institutional factors

Decision making

• Degree of formality

• Level of centralisation

• Who formulates strategy?

• Involvement of specific functions

• Out-of-role activities

• External influences

Methods

• Idea generation

• Stage gate versus parallel processing

• Use of teams

• Emphasis placed on various stages

• Organisation structure

• Evaluation

Potential problems

• Sources of inertia

• Conflicts between marketing and

other personnel

• Lack of integration

• Absence of consultation

• Lack of market research

• Political interference

routinely become involved with activitiesundertaken on the other side. Thus, workrelating to various stages was passedfrom one person to another and be-tween sections, but individuals continuedto participate in the overall develop-ment of a particular product and fol-lowed their own contributions through tothe product’s final implementation. Ex-amples of ‘cross-border’ involvement fre-quently cited by the respondents includedproviding advice, troubleshooting, avoid-ing ‘reinventing the wheel’, validatinginformation, generally helping out andcommenting on proposed alterations toproducts. This pattern was reported tooccur in all 14 of the organisations. Therewas a general absence of team-basedreward systems among the 14 urbanregeneration units (only two [C2 and C5]offered group bonuses — see Table1[d]).

The reason for using multifunctionalstage-gate methods was described by oneof the London interviewees as follows:

‘Because we operate in a small teamit’s simply not feasible to just ‘‘passthe parcel’’. When something needsto be done we talk about it at ourweekly meeting and somebody willtake ownership of the task. It’s still thecase that everyone is involved though,right through to the end. This suitseverybody because everyone knows ex-

actly what is going on and everyonecan help.’

The theme ‘everyone knows what ishappening’ (Boston senior planner)regularly recurred. Also, the benefits ofcollaboration and of people from differentbackgrounds, functions and disciplinessharing information and discussing eachother’s ideas were frequently expressed. ‘Ifwe didn’t use multidisciplinary teams’ (forNPD) opined a London respondent, ‘wewould spend huge amounts of timeduplicating effort and information’. ACopenhagen interviewee stated thatmultidisciplinary teams ‘create a spirit offlexibility within the organisation’. It wasstill the case, nevertheless, that in all nineof the units with more than five full-timeemployees, individuals worked in distinctand differentiated departments or sec-tions.

Each interviewee was presented with asheet containing brief descriptions of thevarious NPD stages and then requested toindicate which of them were given thegreatest attention by their organisation.The results are listed in Table 2, fromwhich it can be seen that idea generationand business analysis shared ‘first place’,with nine mentions each. (Post-hoc, theinterviewees’ earlier comments on thebundles of activities actually included ineach stage of the place product develop-ment process were compared with the

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Table 2: New product development (NPD) stages

1. Idea generation B1, B2, B3, B4, C1, C2, C4, C5, L22. Screening ideas B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, C5, L2, L33. Concept testing B1, B4, L24. Business analysis B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, C2, C3, L2, L45. Product development/technical development B3, C2, C5, L1, L46. Test marketing C47. Commercialisation C1, L48. Monitoring and evaluation B1, B3, C4, C5, L2

when taking important NPD decisions (adiscussion of this issue follows later in thepaper) L2 was the only organisation inLondon to specify local residents. Thiscontrasted with three out of five organisa-tions incorporating local residents in thelist in both Copenhagen and Boston. Itis conceivable that urban redevelopmentorganisations that consider business andproperty interests to be more materialthan those of local residents when takingcritical NPD decisions may possess moreclearly focused preconceptions of the newplace products that are appropriate andhence might allocate a lower priority tothe idea generation stage of the NPDprocess. Apart from the abovementionedoutcome, no linkages between the em-phasis given to certain NPD stages andother dimensions of the analysis could bediscerned.

Relations between marketing andproduct development staffAll the London organisations had at leastone dedicated marketing (or ‘communica-tions’) manager. Three of the five Bostonorganisations employed or had access toprofessional marketing staff. In Copen-hagen conversely, marketing was under-taken in two of the organisations (C1 andC4) by individuals with backgrounds injournalism, and by non-marketing per-sonnel (normally technical developers) intwo others. The remaining organisationclaimed not to engage in marketing, al-though this was clearly not the caseas it produced and circulated extensivepublicity and advertising materials. In allthe organisations with specialist marketing(or ‘communications’) staff, harmony withtechnical developers and other unit per-sonnel was said to prevail. Marketingpeople were regarded as key membersof urban regeneration teams and theyattended all important meetings. Therewas extensive communication and infor-

stage descriptions given on the sheets.There was a broad correspondence be-tween actual practice and the sheet des-criptions.) It is important to note thatTable 2 shows the activities to which theorganisations devoted the largest amountsof time and effort, and in no way impliesthat they did not engage in the otherstages. In fact, respondents in all the unitsstated that their organisation used at leastfive of the eight stages to some degree orother. (It was not possible to explore indepth the precise extents to which eachstage was utilised by each unit during thetime available for the interviews.) Screen-ing attracted eight mentions, technicaldevelopment five, and monitoring andevaluation five. (There were no con-tradictory opinions among people work-ing in the same units.)

A conspicuous feature of Table 2 is thatwhereas the interviewees in four out offive organisations in both Boston andCopenhagen stated that idea generationwas a dominant activity, only one of theLondon organisations (L2) ticked off thisstage. A closer analysis of the codedtranscripts suggested three possible ex-planations for this outcome. First, thethree London organisations that failed tomention idea generation also stated thatthey formally monitored the NPD ac-tivities of organisations in other cities(compared with just one in Copenhagenand two in Boston). Secondly and col-laterally, the same three London organisa-tions reported that their chief executiveswere the main driving force behind theidea generation process. Perhaps thereforethe three chief executives were usingthe observation of other organisations’NPD activities as an alternative to devotingsubstantial effort and resources to thedevelopment and operation of other ideageneration systems. A third possible reasonfor the result is that, when asked to list thekey stakeholders that would be considered

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mation sharing between marketing andother functions, and much multitasking(whereby marketing staff actively par-ticipated in discussions concerning thetechnical side of NPD activities).

Typically, the interviewees attributedthe good relationships that seeminglyexisted between marketing staff and otherurban regeneration staff to two factors.First, nearly all the organisations hadopen-plan offices with people working inclose proximity to each other, so thatindividuals could easily communicate withcolleagues. Secondly, there was a generalperception that urban regeneration or-ganisations needed to portray their aims,activities and achievements in attractiveways. Hence, marketing was seen as avitally important function. In the words ofa Boston respondent:

’Without marketing and good PR weare nothing. There are so many dif-ferent interest groups knocking on ourdoor that we need really smart peopleto communicate our message and keepeverybody happy.’

A Copenhagen interviewee noted that‘marketers can do things and ‘‘go places’’the rest of us simply haven’t a clue about. . . they really make a big input to theteam’. Six of the respondents (two in eachcountry) commented on the fact that, ineffect, their areas were being rebranded,and that the introduction of widespreadchanges in the characters of these dis-tricts necessitated substantial investment inpromotion, public relations, image build-ing, influencing politicians, convincing lo-cal authority funders that a unit was doinga good job, and so on. Town planners,economic developers etc appeared to bepleased that marketing staff were availableto take these important duties on. On theinterpersonal level, marketers seemed to beregarded as ‘nice’ people.

Decision makingThe interviewees were asked whichpeople or bodies they believed exerted thestrongest influence on their organisation’sNPD strategy. A broad definition ofwhat was meant by the word ‘strategy’in this context was presented to therespondents.22 This mentioned decisionsconcerning the determination of priorities,the general natures of the specific placeproducts to be developed, how manyprojects were to be resourced at any onetime, and how innovative the organisationintended to be in its NPD endeavours (egwhether to rely on ‘safe’ tried and testedproducts rather than introducing radicalplace products). Respondents in four ofthe Copenhagen organisations said that, inthe main, local government officialsdetermined overall strategy. This was alsothe case in two of the Boston and one ofthe London organisations. Two furtherLondon and one Copenhagen organisa-tion nominated the chief executive as thedominant strategic decision maker. All therest (three organisations in Boston and onein London) stated that internal staff madestrategic decisions collectively. The onlyconnections ensuing from a cross-tabula-tion of these findings with other unitcharacteristics were that the three or-ganisations wherein strategy was decidedby the chief executive also failed tospecify idea generation as a major NPDactivity, and stated that the observation ofNPD activities in other cities representeda primary source of new ideas.

In reply to the question ‘why wasyour organisation set up in the first in-stance’, all the interviewees mentionedbad housing in the area, derelict openspaces, social deprivation, poor environ-mental circumstances, or (in six casesonly) high levels of crime. Additionally,one of the London interviewees speci-fied the need to attract visitors as animportant motivating influence, another

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government representatives). These find-ings are associated, perhaps, with thepolitical controversies surrounding thework of many of the organisations in thesample, as discussed below.

Projects involving radical changeAlthough the researchers did not set outto find controversial urban regenerationprogrammes involving radical change inthe character of an area, it emerged thatthe work at all the organisations wascontroversial to a greater or lesser de-gree. One of the Copenhagen respondentsstated that, by its very nature, any urbanrenewal project was necessarily controver-sial because the interests of so manyconflicting groups were affected. Many ofthe interviewees appeared to share thisview, although it was sometimes difficultto induce them to discuss in detail issuesrelating to proposed radical changes in themake-ups of the areas concerned. Hence,comments such as ‘conflict is inevitablebecause there are simply too many groupsof people that we are expected to please’,and ‘things here are highly controversialbecause one group’s gain is another’s loss’were commonplace. A Copenhagen inter-viewee noted how:

‘On the one hand the national govern-ment wants to improve housing in thearea to attract wealthier residents fromoutside. But the municipality (localgovernment) is still putting people withsocial and unemployment problemsinto the area. What are we supposed tobe about?’

According to a London interviewee,‘things will always be difficult becausethere is always an opportunity cost’.Another respondent in London similarlyalleged that because ‘there is not enoughmoney to go around and because there aretoo many projects to be completed, any

reported that the lack of transport facilitiesin the area was a critical reason forestablishing an urban regeneration pro-gramme. Thus, the fundamental raisond’etre for these organisations invariablyinvolved bad living conditions in thelocalities concerned. Yet, the local resi-dents of the areas were not commonlyregarded as people whose interests shouldbe paramount when NPD decisions werebeing made. The interviewees were askedto state which stakeholders would beconsidered when initiating and develop-ing new products. Small businesses orbusinesses in general were mentioned byall four of the London, two of the Bostonand two of the Copenhagen organisations.Property owners were named by fourorganisations in Boston and one in Lon-don; local government officials were spec-ified by three of the Copenhagen; oneBoston and two London organisations.Only one London, one Boston and twoCopenhagen organisations included localresidents in their (typically two- or three-item) list of the main stakeholders thatwould be considered in relation to deci-sions about NPD.

This outcome was matched by theconsultation procedures normally adoptedwhen initiating specific place develop-ment activities. All four of the Londonorganisations affirmed that they formallyconsulted representatives of trade, businessor employers’ associations, but only onepossessed comparable formal proceduresfor consulting representatives of residents’groups. Similar situations occurred inBoston and Copenhagen: just one in fiveorganisations consulted local residents ineach city. On the other hand, consulta-tions with business and property-owninginterests were commonplace (only two ofthe 14 organisations did not routinelyengage in consultations with representa-tives of these groups, the same figureas for formal consultations with local

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interest group that loses out when anotheris seen to gain will of course feelaggrieved’. ‘They really let you know itwhen they are not happy’, he continued.Interviewees in three of the Boston, oneof the Copenhagen and two of theLondon organisations declared that theirprojects implied extremely radical change;had created widespread conflict; and werethe source of many disputes betweenbusinesses, landowners and the localcommunity.

Interviewees in all six of the or-ganisations managing highly controversialprojects involving extensive and radi-cal change stated that outcomes werevery uncertain and that the risks ofoverrunning budgets and/or scheduledcompletion dates were high. All 14of the organisations claimed that riskand uncertainty represented significantproblems. One of the London and one ofthe Boston organisations completed for-mal and detailed risk assessment ex-ercises. Half the organisations in thesample commissioned professional marketresearch companies to conduct researchinto place product user requirements andattitudes. Also it turned out that the moreradical the changes planned for an area(particularly vis-a-vis the replacement ofexisting residents by more affluent in-coming people) the more likely theorganisation was to employ a marketresearch company. Thus, to the extentthat the place products being developedby the sample organisations represented‘really new products’ (and the levelsof controversy surrounding them sug-gest that this was indeed the case),the results of the present study sup-port the findings of work completed inthe for-profit sector suggesting that thedevelopment of really new products tendsto be associated with large amounts ofmarket research.17 It has been suggestedmoreover that the successful development

of really new products requires open andflexible internal communication systemsand is strongly associated with the in-formal dissemination of information.30,31

Again, these characteristics were typicalof the sample organisations. Informationwas routinely exchanged across functionalboundaries; multidisciplinary teamwork-ing was the norm.

Problems of city place NPDThe interviewees were asked about themain problems they experienced in thecourse of their NPD activities. Responseswere dominated by three issues: localgovernment bureaucracy; political pres-sures; and shortages of resources. Inter-viewees in half the organisations in thesample (three in London, two in Copen-hagen and two in Boston) complained ofexcessive bureaucracy (in the pejorativesense of the word) in the local governmentoffices with which they had to deal.Examples of difficulties cited in this respectincluded long delays in obtaining answersto queries, complex and sometimes unin-telligible planning and building regulations,unwillingness to specify clear expectationsor objectives, ‘lack of mission’, and largenumbers of rules and procedures that had tobe followed (some of which were notrevealed until the very last minute). Threeorganisations in Boston, two in Copen-hagen and one in London asserted thatresource shortages caused major problemsfor their work, including deficienciesrelating to human resources as well asfinance. Several respondents across all threecountries commented (without a prompt)on the scarcity of personnel possessingrequisite skills and experience in the urbanregeneration field and on the difficultyof attracting and retaining appropriatepeople.

Overwhelmingly, however, complaintsfocused on allegations of political inter-ference by local government officials and

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emphasis on all four of the stages for ideageneration and screening, concept testing,and monitoring and evaluation regardedtheir endeavours as having generatedhighly successful outcomes. Apart from inthese three organisations, close attentionto idea generation and screening seemedto be associated with the most satisfactory(self-reported) attainment of objectives infour further organisations. In reply toqueries regarding the various interestgroups for which projects had beenmost effective, it emerged that thetwo organisations that emphasised com-mercialisation claimed that projects hadworked extremely well for propertyowners and incoming businesses. Other-wise, no distinct response patterns couldbe discerned.

CONCLUSIONThe organisations studied tended to applythe multifunction stage-gate approach.Few of them employed team-based rewardsystems, relying instead on flat rate pay-ments or individual performance-relatedpay. It appeared that NPD was managed inthis particular nonprofit context accordingto many of the ‘best practice’ prescriptionsof the academic literature in the for-profit domain. The organisations had pre-identified stages and systems for NPD,and multidisciplinary teamworking wasthe norm. There was much cross-func-tional integration, including close andharmonious integration of the activitiesof marketing and technical personnel.Also, information was widely disseminatedwithin the organisation. Additionally, theresults support the contentions that thedevelopment of ‘really new’ nonprofitproducts is associated with open andflexible internal communications and withthe completion of relatively large amountsof market research. The place productsbeing developed by many of the organisa-

politicians. Three London, four Copen-hagen and all the organisations in Bostonalleged that political factors adversely af-fected their work. ‘There is perpetualconflict between businesses and the localcommunity and the politicians are con-stantly changing sides’, stated one inter-viewee in London. ‘We have too manypoliticians to appease, and we don’t knowfrom one day to another what they ex-pect’, said another. A Copenhagen in-terviewee commented that residents inher area were ‘tired of being told whatto do’ and that it was ‘the politicianswho are to blame’ for residents’ disillu-sion. Political interference was seeminglymost acute at the initial idea generationstage of place product development. ‘Wewanted to anchor revival on developing awaste recycling plant, but local politicianswrecked the plan’, stated a Boston respon-dent. ‘There is a lack of consensus regard-ing what the area should be’, insisted aninterviewee in Copenhagen, with ‘per-petual conflict’ between businesses andresident groups. This resulted, he con-tinued, in politicians and local govern-ment officials ‘constantly telling us whatwe should and should not think’ (inrelation to new ideas for place products).

Effectiveness of proceduresNotwithstanding the previously men-tioned caveats regarding the subjectivenature of the assessment of the degrees of‘success’ achieved by new place products,the participants were asked to commenton how well they believed their organisa-tions’ NPD activities had resulted in theattainment of the objectives they had beengiven at the commencement of therelevant project. Then the intervieweeswere questioned about how they thoughtvarious interest groups regarded theoutcomes to programmes. An analysis ofthe responses revealed that respondents inthree organisations that placed heavy

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tions implied radical and far-reachingchange in the identities and make-ups ofthe districts concerned. No linkages be-tween this and the tendency to emphasisethe idea generation stage of the NPDprocess were observed, however. A pos-sible explanation for the disparity is theheavy political interference with the opera-tions of urban regeneration organisationsnoted by most of the respondents, espe-cially when new ideas for place productswere being generated.

No substantive differences in NPDpractices among organisations in the threecountries could be discerned. Rather, thedegrees of similarity of the proceduresadopted and of attitudes towards manykey issues were remarkable. There wereno meaningful disparities in levels offormality of organisation or processes, inthe extents or natures of the informationexchanged between people or sections, orin the use of teamworking. Threepotential reasons for the comparability ofthe NPD methods and approaches ob-served in the three countries may beadvanced. The first factor might in-volve the cultural closeness of the threecountries covered by the investigation. Itis relevant to note in this connection,however, that Kleinschmidt’s27 cross-na-tional study covered countries (the USAand Canada, Denmark and Germany)comparable to those investigated here, andsignificant differences in NPD practicesdid emerge. Secondly, it may be that thecommon issues and difficulties confrontedby all the organisations in the threecountries engendered common practicesand solutions to problems. This begs thequestion of whether the best practices andsolutions are being (universally) applied. Athird possible explanation of the results isthat increasingly rapid and comprehensiveinternational transmission of managementmethods relating to urban regenerationprogrammes might be encouraging the

adoption of similar place NPD techniquesand approaches in all Western countries.Although no hard evidence can bepresented on the latter proposition, thepresent researchers were impressed bythe international awareness and ‘cos-mopolitanism’ of the respondents. It wasevident that most had travelled widely;that they read the same sorts of businessbooks, magazines and other literature;were familiar with all the contem-porary management jargon and prac-titioner management concepts; attendedinternational conferences; and often com-municated with people doing similarwork in other countries.

Several areas for further research aresuggested by the outcomes to the inves-tigation. Clearly, the NPD idea generationprocess within the nonprofit public sec-tor context (eg in relation to hospital,healthcare or police services) is worthy ofdetailed analysis, including the role ofpolitical influences. Might it be possible todevise precise, formal procedures for newproduct idea generation that recognise thepluralistic natures of many public sectorsituations and their acute political sen-sitivity? Another interesting question iswhether the wider application of team-based NPD reward systems would im-prove the qualities of the new placeproducts developed. Time constraints onthe interviews meant that it was notpossible to explore the exact nature of themarket research commissioned by cer-tain organisations. What precisely werethese units seeking to find out, and why?Equally, the study did not distinguishbetween NPD activities relating solelyto physical products (buildings, transportfacilities etc) and those based on theprovision of a service (library services forinstance). It would be useful to examineeach type of place product separately witha view to identifying any differences inNPD practice that might be applied.

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(9) Department of the Environment,Transport and the Regions (1988) ‘TheImpact of Urban DevelopmentCorporations in Leeds, Bristol andCentral Manchester’, RegenerationResearch Summary No. 18, 1998,www. regeneration.detr.gov.uk/rs/01898.htm.

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APPENDIX

Participating organisations

LondonL1: Cityside Regeneration ProjectL2: Invest in HackneyL3: Cross River PartnershipL4: Islington Council Regeneration

Group

CopenhagenC1: Holmbladsgade Neighbourhood

Revitalisation ProgrammeC2: Hvidovre Urban Regeneration

ProjectC3: Kongens Enghave Urban Regenera-

tion ProjectC4: Kolding (South West) Urban

Regeneration ProjectC5: Centre for Urban Policy, Develop-

ment and Welfare, Copenhagen

BostonB1: Jackson Square Initiative (Boston

Redevelopment Authority)B2: Boston Housing Redevelopment

ProgrammeB3: Harborwalk Revitalization Pro-

grammeB4: Fort Point District InitiativeB5: North Allston Neighbourhood

Development Project

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