The front-end phase is the early phase of new product development (NPD), which starts with an idea for a new product, and ends when the firm has developed a robust product concept (Khurana and Rosenthal, 1997). Numerous studies recognize the importance of front-end for successful NPD (Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1987; Florén and Frishammar, 2012). However, prior research has shown that early NPD often has a dynamic and interactive nature and consists of complex information processing, ad hoc decision-making, and conflicting organizational pressures caused by high degrees of complexity and uncertainty (Akbar and Tzoukas, 2013; de Brentani and Reid, 2012). This leads to operational challenges such as missteps, time delays, and product failure in the front-end (Goldenberg et al., 2001).

Although the literature on the subsequent NPD phases is strong and well developed (see e.g. Brown and Eisenhardt, 1995; Cooper et al., 2002), practical insights are still short about how firms achieve proficient management of operations in the front-end phase. In fact, most prior studies have proposed laundry lists of successful factors (Khurana and Rosenthal, 1997), but provide limited insights into unique resources and capabilities critical to operations. Building on the resource-based view (Barney, 1991), we undertake an explorative study to identify such unique resources and capabilities that enable front-end operational competitive advantages. More importantly, we also investigate how resources and capabilities interact and jointly provide different operational advantages in front-end of NPD.