Introducing new products necessitates that manufacturers not only carefully craft the initial contract terms with retailers but also consider how the specificity of the terms influences a retailer's relational behaviors throughout the duration of the contract, contingent upon the new product's success. The authors develop a series of hypotheses to investigate new product introductions using a multimethod design consisting of a survey of manufacturers and a repeated measures experiment with retailers. The results indicate that manufacturers craft increasingly specific contract terms as new product creativity increases when frequency of new product introductions and performance ambiguity are higher. When they are lower, the positive influence of new product creativity on contract specificity weakens and can in some instances become negative. The results also indicate that there is no significant change in a retailer's relational behaviors throughout a contract's duration when contract specificity is lower, regardless of the new product's success. However, under the condition of higher contract specificity, the retailer's relational behaviors increase (decrease) over a contract's duration when the new product is successful (unsuccessful).
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