Who Knows What in NPD Teams: Communication Context,Mode, and Task Contingencies

The use of cross‐functional teams in new product development (NPD) benefits firms in many ways. One benefit is the diverse knowledge team members bring to the project, but that benefit can only be appreciated if team members fully utilize and integrate the differentiated expertise of members. As reliance on cross‐functional NPD teams grows, however, firms struggle to exploit the full potential of functionally diverse groups, the biggest obstacle being integrating team members' varied knowledge, expertise, and abilities. Therefore, understanding how information is integrated and used is a primary concern for both practitioners and researchers. Databases and other forms of hard data are methods team members can use to effectively share and integrate knowledge; another method based on social cognition is transactive memory systems (TMS). TMS indicates who will learn what and from whom. The notion is that knowledge is distributed among people in the group, and to make effective use of it, individuals need to know who knows what and who knows who knows what. Grounded in the knowledge‐based theory of the firm, this study investigates the influence of different communication contexts and modes on TMS under different NPD task environments (i.e., exploitation and exploration) in cross‐functional NPD teams. A theoretical model is developed and empirically tested using data collected from 272 ongoing NPD teams of 128 Chinese high‐tech companies. Findings suggest that when teams face tasks defined by exploration, informal communication and face‐to‐face communication are positively associated with TMS, whereas for tasks defined by exploitation, formal communication and computer‐mediated communication are positively related with TMS. Additionally, this study found that TMS is positively related to NPD performance both in terms of project performance and in terms of market performance. Based on these findings, theoretical and managerial implications are drawn regarding resource deployment that encourages the development of effective TMS leading to successful NPD projects.     

The Impact of Team Cognitive Styles on Performance of Radical and Incremental NPD Projects

Although prior studies increased our understanding of the performance implications of new product development (NPD) team members' functional backgrounds and demographic variables, they remained relatively silent on the impact of underlying psychological characteristics such as the team members' cognitive styles on project performance. The goal of this study is to explore the effects of NPD teams' cognitive styles on project performance in different kinds of NPD projects. Based on survey data from members of 95 NPD teams gathered in four Dutch manufacturing companies, hypotheses about the relationships between teams' cognitive styles and project performance of radical and incremental NPD projects are tested. Results of linear regression analyses show that the level of teams' analytical information processing positively affects project performance in both incremental and radical NPD projects, whereas the relationship between the level of teams' intuitive information processing and project performance depends on the radicalness of the project. These findings contribute to the academic discussion on team innovation, suggesting that, next to demographic and functional characteristics, cognitive styles in teams also significantly influence project performance.     

Procedural Justice Climate in New Product Development Teams: Antecedents and Consequences

With the increasing interest in the concept of justice in the group behavior literature, the procedural justice (PJ) climate attracts many researchers and practitioners from different fields. Nevertheless, the PJ climate is rarely addressed in the new product development (NPD) project team literature. Specifically, the technology and innovation management (TIM) literature provides little about what the PJ climate is, its nature and benefits, and how it works in NPD project teams. Also, few studies investigate the antecedents and consequences of the PJ climate in NPD teams enhancing the understanding of this concept from a practical perspective. This paper discusses the PJ climate theory in a NPD team context and empirically demonstrates how team members' positive collective perceptions of a PJ climate can be developed and how a PJ climate influences a project's performance in NPD teams. In particular, team culture values including employee orientation, customer orientation, systematic management control, innovativeness, and social responsibility were investigated as antecedents, and team learning, speed to market, and market success of new products were studied as outcomes of PJ climate in this paper. By studying 83 NPD project teams it was found on the basis of using partial least squares (PLS) method that (1) the level of employee, customer and innovativeness orientation as well as systematic management control during the project had a positive impact on developing a PJ climate in an NPD team; (2) a PJ climate positively affects team learning and product development time (i.e., speed to market); and (3) team learning and speed to market mediate the relations between the PJ climate and new product success (NPS). Based on the findings, this paper suggests that managers should enhance the PJ climate and team culture in the project team to enhance team learning and to develop products faster. In particular, managers should (1) open a discussion forum among people and create a dialogue for people who disagree with the other project team members rather than dictating or emposing others ideas to them, (2) facilitate information searching and collecting mechanisms to make decisions effectively and to clarify uncertainties, and (3) allow team members to challange project‐related ideas and decisions and modify them with consensus. Also, to enhance the PJ climate during the project, managers should (1) respect and listen to all team members' ideas and try to understand why they are sometimes in opposition, (2) define team members' task boundaries and clarify project norms and project goals, and (3) set knowledge‐questioning values by facilitating team members to try out new ideas and seek out new ways to do things.     

How Teamwork Matters More as Team Member Dispersion Increases*

Product development teams become increasingly dispersed because innovative project tasks require the input of specialized knowledge at multiple locations. Prior analyses indicate that as team member dispersion increases teams find it more difficult to perform high‐quality teamwork. Moreover, the literature has largely assumed that the performance effect of teamwork in innovative projects would be driven by the nature of the project task and that this would be true regardless of the degree to which team members were co‐located. The present study argues, however, that teamwork affects team performance more strongly as team member dispersion increases. Two main reasons for this are discussed: (1) High‐quality teamwork can leverage the increased knowledge potential of dispersed teams; and (2) team leaders in more dispersed teams have little possibility to compensate low‐quality teamwork through hands‐on leadership. Responses from 575 managers, team leaders, and team members of 145 new product development (NPD) projects in the software industry were used to analyze the moderating effect of team member proximity on the relationship between teamwork quality and team performance. Using regression analysis, support is found for the initial hypothesis that team member dispersion moderates the relationship between teamwork quality and team performance, that is, that increasing team member dispersion increases the positive impact of teamwork quality on team performance. As such, the present analysis advances understanding of dispersed teams, showing that teamwork quality not only is more difficult to achieve but also is more critical to team performance as team dispersion increases. Furthermore, low‐proximity teams can reach higher levels of effectiveness and efficiency than co‐located ones if they manage to achieve high levels of teamwork over distance. Thus, team dispersion may well be an opportunity and should not just be regarded as a liability to be overcome or avoided. This research recognizes that the vast majority of teams are neither perfectly co‐located nor perfectly virtual. There are many shades of gray between these two extremes, and various individual, team, task, and contextual characteristics may have an effect on how decreases—however small—in geographical proximity affect the process and performance of teams. Future research is encouraged to address such factors at different levels of analysis aimed at providing managers with recommendations for dispersed teamwork.     

The Effect of Interactional Fairness on the Performance of Cross‐Functional Product Development Teams: A Multilevel Mediated Model*

Cross‐functional product development teams (CFPDTs) are receiving increasing attention as a fundamental mechanism for achieving greater interfunctional integration in the product development process. However, little is known about how team members' interactional fairness perception—fairness perception based on the quality of interpersonal treatment received from the project manager during the new product development process—affects cross‐functional communication and the performance of CFPDTs. This study examines the effects of interactional fairness on both team members' performance and team performance as a whole. It was predicted that interactional fairness in CFPDTs would significantly affect team members' task performance, both task‐ and person‐focused interpersonal citizenship behaviors, as well as team performance. Additionally, commitment would partially mediate the effects of interactional fairness on these performance outcomes. Analyzing survey responses from two student samples of CFPDTs with hierarchical linear modeling techniques, it was demonstrated that team members' task performance, interpersonal citizenship behavior, and team performance are enhanced when team members are dedicated to both the team and the project, and such dedication is fostered when project managers are fair to team members in an interpersonal way.     

From Experience: Harnessing Tacit Knowledge to Achieve Breakthrough Innovation

The ability to create a stream of revolutionary new products can represent a sustainable competitive advantage for firms in almost any industry. Whereas evolutionary product improvements often follow predictable trajectories, breakthrough innovations involve unexpected leaps of creativity and insight. Despite its strategic importance, however, little is known about the process by which innovators achieve these valuable breakthroughs. This article proposes that breakthrough innovations result from the harnessing of tacit knowledge possessed by individuals and project teams. Tacit knowledge lies below the surface of conscious thought and is accumulated through a lifetime of experience, experimentation, perception, and learning by doing. Managers who can tap into this vast pool of creative energy can elevate the innovative capabilities of their teams well beyond the incremental and mundane. The article begins by establishing the vital importance of breakthrough innovations to the competitiveness of firms. This strategic mandate is followed by a brief discussion of the nature and implications of tacit knowledge in the context of innovation. The remainder of the article describes three mutually reinforcing methods for encouraging the explication and sharing of tacit knowledge among design team members. The ultimate goal is to establish a generative atmosphere for breakthrough innovation, in which divergent thinking, improvisation, and artistic creativity merge with the practical demands of the product development process. The first step toward harnessing the creative power of tacit knowledge is to foster the emotional commitment and deep personal involvement of design team members. Managers can accomplish this goal through the development of inspiring “innovation stories,” encouragement of reasonable risk‐taking and experimentation, building of unique team identities, and displaying unbridled confidence in a team's creative abilities. Once the emotional commitment of team members has been assured, two techniques are proposed as catalysts for breakthroughs derived from tacit knowledge. These methods are based on evidence that intimate physical interaction during the creative process, both person to object and person to person, may be a catalyst for tacit insights. The first technique highlights the use of early and frequent prototyping as a powerful focal point for the explication of tacit knowledge from both the design team and potential customers. The second technique involves the encouragement of face‐to‐face interaction between innovators during product development, thereby enabling creative improvisation and real‐time knowledge sharing. Several implications for managers are highlighted, including the need for a greater emphasis on employee retention, the importance of developing a nurturing environment for innovation, and the value of intimate physical interaction, including early prototyping, indwelling with customers, and co‐location of teams wherever possible.     

Managing New Product Development Teams in a Globally Dispersed NPD Program

Globalization is a major market trend today, one characterized by both increased international competition as well as extensive opportunities for firms to expand their operations beyond current boundaries. Effectively dealing with this important change, however, makes the management of global new product development (NPD) a major concern. To ensure success in this complex and competitive endeavor, companies must rely on global NPD teams that make use of the talents and knowledge available in different parts of the global organization. Thus, cohesive and well‐functioning global NPD teams become a critical capability by which firms can effectively leverage this much more diverse set of perspectives, experiences, and cultural sensitivities for the global NPD effort. The present research addresses the global NPD team and its impact on performance from both an antecedent and a contingency perspective. Using the resource‐based view (RBV) as a theoretical framework, the study clarifies how the internal, or behavioral, environment of the firm—specifically, resource commitment and senior management involvement—and the global NPD team are interrelated and contribute to global NPD program performance. In addition, the proposed performance relationships are viewed as being contingent on certain explicit, or strategic, factors. In particular, the degree of global dispersion of the firm's NPD effort is seen as influencing the management approach and thus altering the relationships among company background resources, team, and performance. For the empirical analysis, data are collected through a survey of 467 corporate global new product programs (North America and Europe, business‐to‐business). A structural model testing for the hypothesized effects was substantially supported. The results show that creating and effectively managing global NPD teams offers opportunities for leveraging a diverse but unique combination of talents and knowledge‐based resources, thereby enhancing the firm's ability to achieve a sustained competitive advantage in international markets. To function effectively, the global NPD team must be nested in a corporate environment in which there is a commitment of sufficient resources and where senior management plays an active role in leading, championing, and coordinating the global NPD effort. This need for commitment and global team integration becomes even more important for success as the NPD effort becomes more globally dispersed.     

Antecedents and Consequences of Unlearning in New Product Development Teams

Unlearning, which first appeared almost 30 years ago as a subprocess of the organizational learning process, has received only limited attention in the literature. Rather than building on empirical research, the existing scholarship is largely anecdotal, aimed at reviewing the literature and generating new insights. Further, unlearning studies tend to analyze the organizational level and neglect smaller units such as work groups and teams. To address this gap in the understanding of unlearning, this article empirically investigates unlearning in work groups in general and new product development (NPD) teams in particular. This study, based on the literature of organizational memory and change, operationalized team unlearning as changes in beliefs and routines during team‐based projects and then discussed the importance of unlearning behavior in NPD teams. Specifically it was argued that unlearning guards beliefs and routines against rigidity to cope with environmental turbulence. This is of particular note when rigid product development procedures and group beliefs inhibit the reception and evaluation of new market and technology information and reduce the value of perceived new information. To test the antecedents and consequences of the team unlearning model, 319 NPD teams were investigated. Using structural equation modeling, it was found that (1) team crisis and anxiety have a direct impact on team unlearning; (2) environmental turbulence also has a direct impact on both team crisis and anxiety and team unlearning; and (3) after team beliefs and project routines have changed, implementing new knowledge or information positively affects new product success. Specifically, the findings revealed that changes in team members' collective beliefs in accordance with environmental changes and the in‐process planning or adjustment of project work activities and procedures as the projects evolve enable teams to develop and launch new products successfully. Also, results indicated that team crisis and anxiety in NPD projects assist team members in revising their previous beliefs and routines when project teams are performing in turbulent environments. This article suggests that managers can enhance team unlearning by (1) creating a sense of urgency by introducing an artificial crisis; and (2) avoiding the groupthink phenomena by bringing in an outsider to challenge existing policies and procedures, and training the team on lateral thinking. In addition, managers can plan project activities in a flexible manner that allows changes as the project evolves to facilitate team unlearning. However, managers should also be cautious when promoting team unlearning. Without careful and considerable evaluation, change in beliefs and routines can cause information/knowledge loss.     

Systematic Design Methods and the Creative Performance of New Product Teams: Do They Contradict or Complement Each Other?

Can organizations exert control and provide structure for NPD activities while at the same time encouraging and managing creative performance? Any new product development (NPD) project requires some level of creative effort. In new product development, creative performance is of preeminent importance. Most NPD projects are executed with the NPD team as the organizational nucleus. As a result, managing creativity in NPD thus implies managing the creativity of NPD teams. Besides having to manage creative performance, companies are generally also concerned with improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the NPD process. Modern NPD projects therefore have the need for an approach that can be planned, optimized, and verified. As a consequence, systematic design methods have become widely used in NPD. In this article conceptual model is developed of the effect of modern design methodology on the creative performance of NPD teams. First, it is argued that the effect of systematic design methodology on NPD team creativity is mediated by the communication patterns of the NPD team. It is then proposed that four principles underlie modern design methodology: hierarchical decomposition, systematic variation, satisficing, and discursiveness. These principles affect NPD communication by, respectively, influencing the establishment of subgroups, the frequency of communication, the level of agreement or disagreement in the team, and the level of centralization of communication. Next, arguments are presented of how each of these four communicational characteristics shapes the creative performance of NPD teams. This second part of the conceptual model is tested empirically. This is done by studying the communication patterns in 44 NPD teams, employing social network analysis tools. These patterns of communication are then related to team‐level creative performance through a set of regression analyses. The main conclusion of the article is that the design principles work together and need to be considered as an integrated whole: the creative performance of NPD teams can only effectively be managed by using and aligning all four of them.     

Innovation Performance in New Product Development Teams in China's Technology Ventures: The Role of Behavioral Integration Dimensions and Collective Efficacy

In emerging markets, technology ventures increasingly rely on new product development (NPD) teams to generate creative ideas and to mold these innovative ideas into streams of new products or services. However, little is known about how behavioral integration (a behavioral team process) and collective efficacy (a motivational team process) jointly facilitate or inhibit team innovation performance in emerging markets—especially in China, the world's largest emerging‐market setting with collectivist and high power distance cultures. Drawing on social cognitive theory and behavioral integration research, this article elucidates the relationships between behavioral integration dimensions (i.e., collaborative behavior, information exchange, and joint decision‐making) and innovation performance and also examines how collective efficacy moderates these relationships in China's NPD teams. Results from a sample of 96 NPD teams in China's technology ventures reveal that information exchange is positively associated with innovation performance. Collaborative behavior positively but marginally influences innovation performance, whereas joint decision‐making does not relate to innovation performance. Moreover, collective efficacy demonstrates an important moderating role. Specifically, both collaborative behavior and joint decision‐making are more positively associated with innovation performance when collective efficacy is higher. In contrast, information exchange is less positively associated with innovation performance when collective efficacy is higher. This study makes important theoretical contributions to the literature on team innovation and behavioral integration in emerging markets by offering a better understanding of how behavioral and motivational team processes jointly shape innovation performance in China's NPD teams. This study also extends social cognitive theory by identifying collective efficacy as a boundary condition for the overall effectiveness of behavioral integration dimensions. In particular, this study highlights the condition under which behavioral integration dimensions facilitate or inhibit NPD team innovation performance in China.     

Spurring Cross‐Functional Integration for Higher New Product Performance: A Group Effectiveness Perspective*

Spurring integration among functional specialists so they collectively create successful, or high‐performing, new products is a central interest of innovation practitioners and researchers. Firms are increasingly assembling cross‐functional new product development (NPD) teams for this purpose. However, integration of team members' divergent orientations and expertise is notoriously difficult to achieve. Individuals from distinct functions such as design, marketing, manufacturing, and research and development (R&D) are often assigned to NPD teams but have contrasting backgrounds, priorities, and thought worlds. If not well managed, this diversity can yield unproductive conflict and chaos rather than successful new products. Firms are thus looking for avenues of integrating the varied expertise and orientations within these cross‐functional teams. The aim of this study is to address two important and not fully resolved questions: (1) does cross‐functional integration in NPD teams actually improve new product performance; and if so, (2) what are ways to strengthen integration? The study began by developing a model of cross‐functional integration from the perspective of the group effectiveness theory. The theory has been used to explain the performance of a wide range of small, complex work groups; this study is the first application of the theory to NPD teams. The model developed from this theory was then tested by conducting a survey of dual informants in 206 NPD teams in an array of U.S. high‐technology companies. In answer to the first research question, the findings show that cross‐functional integration indeed contributes to new product performance as long conjectured. This finding is important in that it highlights that bringing together the skills, efforts, and knowledge of differing functions in an NPD team has a clear and coveted payoff: high‐performing new products. In answer to the second question, the findings indicate that both intra‐ (or internal) and extra‐ (or external) team factors contribute and codetermine cross‐functional integration. Specifically, social cohesion and superordinate identity as internal team factors and market‐oriented reward system, planning process formalization, and managerial encouragement to take risks as external team factors foster integration. These findings underscore that spurring integration requires addressing the conditions inside as well as outside NPD teams. These specialized work groups operate as organizations within organizations; recognition of this in situ arrangement is the first step toward better managing and ensuring rewards from team integration. Based on these findings, managerial and research implications were drawn for team integration and new product performance.     

An investigation of the use of global, virtual, and colocated new product development teams

This paper presents the results of an investigation of differences between global, virtual and colocated new product development (NPD) teams. Specifically, we examined whether and how these three types of teams differed in terms of usage, challenges, and performance. A survey of PDMA members was undertaken to collect the data. Out of 103 firms participating in the survey, 54 had used or were using global teams for some of their NPD efforts. Overall, we found that the use of global teams in our respondent firms is rapidly increasing. Our respondents indicated that by the year 2001, approximately one out of every five NPD teams in their companies are likely to be global. However, our respondents also expect that their companies will be using multiple types of teams that is, global, virtual, and colocated, to develop their new products. Our findings also suggest that global teams generally face greater behavioral and project management challenges than either colocated or virtual teams. Global team performance is also lower than the performance of virtual or colocated teams. Are these challenges associated with poorer performance? In examining this question, our results suggest that greater project management challenges are associated with lower performance, for all three types of teams. Surprisingly, behavioral challenges were not associated with performance for any team type. Our results suggest that firms face different problems associated with managing each type of NPD team—global, virtual and colocated. To effectively manage each type of team may, in turn, require that companies and their managers employ different solutions to these different problems. Additionally, companies may find that the preparation they provide to their managers and team members to work in these different team environments may also need to be different. Further research is clearly needed to address these managerial implications.     

Team control mode,workers' creativity,and new product innovativeness

Scholars of creativity and innovation argue that successful innovations originate from the creative ideas of workers. However, few studies have empirically examined how management mechanisms, such as the control mode adopted by the new product development team, may work together with workers' creativity to deliver a successful new product. Drawing on the theory of opposing action strategies of team innovation, we propose that different team control modes may work together with team members' creativity to jointly influence the innovativeness of teamwork outcomes. With survey data collected from different sources in new product development teams, we find that restrictive control can effectively help teams composed of very creative members to successfully develop innovative new products. Conversely, promotive control can effectively help teams composed of less creative members to deliver innovative new products.     

Enhancing the Creative Performance of New Product Teams: An Organizational Configurational Approach

Innovation is crucial to managing ever‐increasing environmental complexity. Creativity is the first stage of the innovation process and is particularly relevant in modern new product development (NPD) projects. In response to a call for further empirical research on collective creative performance combining individual and team levels in a comprehensive framework, this paper offers useful evidence for the design of NPD teams to foster creative performance. The results suggest that different sets of individual traits and collective processes combine and interact, enabling a similar level of creative performance from different configurations of individual and team “ingredients.” There are no consistently good‐quality or poor‐quality NPD teams or processes. However, equifinal configurations—based on team composition, and interpersonal, coordination, control, and diversity management processes—can be effective in producing creative products. Through a large‐scale study of 119 teams of students involved in an NPD activity, this paper contributes by expanding creativity and NPD team design literature, providing the basis for a “first right” approach to real‐world, in‐company research. It first proposes and tests the adoption of the configurational equifinality approach in the NPD team design domain, introducing the concept of complementarities among different types of “team ingredients,” both at the individual and team level. Second, it introduces different multidimensional measures of team creative performance, relevant to generalizing and comparing the research results. Third, it offers several guidelines for designing real‐world NPD teams through the combination of diversity and interpersonal management, as well as coordination and control processes, which have not been studied to any great extent but are at times controversial in creativity literature.     

Antecedents of Team Intuition and Its Impact on the Success of New Product Development Projects

Research on new product development (NPD) team decision making has identified a number of cognitive mechanisms (e.g., team intelligence, teamwork quality, and charged behavior) that appear to guide NPD teams toward effective decisions. Despite an extensive body of literature on these aspects of NPD team decisions, team intuition has yet to be investigated in the context of NPD teams. Intuition is regarded as a form of information processing that differs from cognitive processes, and is associated with gut feelings, hunches, and mystical insights. Past research on intuition suggests that many managers and teams embrace intuition as an effective approach in response to situations in a turbulent environment where decisions need to be made immediately. Past research also revealed various benefits of intuition in decision making. These are: to speed up decision‐making process, to improve decision outcomes such as higher product quality, and to solve less structured problems (e.g., new product planning). This research examines the impact of team‐related antecedents (e.g., team member experience) and decision‐specific antecedents (e.g., decision importance) on intuition in NPD teams. The moderating impact of environmental turbulence between antecedent variables and intuition, as well as between intuition and team performance, is investigated. To test hypotheses, data were collected from 155 NPD projects in Turkey. The results showed that past team member experience, transactive memory systems (TMS), team empowerment, decision importance, and decision motives are significantly related to team intuition. The results also revealed that team intuition is significantly related to product success and speed‐to‐market, with both high and low levels of market turbulence. The findings of this study present some interesting practical implications to managers in order to improve intuitive skills of NPD teams. First, managers should make sure that team members have the relevant expertise to facilitate effective intuition. Second, managers should encourage and enhance TMS for effective intuition. If team members are not able to gain timely and unhindered access to others who have the needed experience and knowledge, past team member experience becomes idle in order to make effective intuitive judgments. Third, managers concerned with achieving successfully developed products and helping teams to make immediate but accurate decisions during NPD process should assign more power to team members so that they can rely on their intuitive skills.     

Determinants of New Product Development Team Performance: A Meta‐analytic Review

New product development (NPD) has become a critical determinant of firm performance. There is a considerable body of research examining the factors that influence a firm's ability to successfully develop and introduce new products. Vital to this success is the creation and management of NPD teams. While the evidence for the use of NPD teams and the factors that determine their success is accumulating, there is still a lack of clarity on the team‐level variables that are most impactful on NPD success. This meta‐analytic study examines the effects of NPD team characteristics on three different measures of success: effectiveness (market success), efficiency (meeting budgets and schedules), and speed‐to‐market, requiring incorporation of a broader set of team variables than previous studies in order to capture more factors explaining NPD outcomes. Unlike a typical empirical study that considered no more than two team variables to predict NPD performance, this study combines research spanning eight team variables including team input variables (team tenure, functional diversity, team ability, and team leadership) and team process variables (internal and external team communication, group cohesiveness, and goal clarity). Results from 38 studies were aggregated to estimate the meta‐analytic effect sizes for each of the variables. Using the meta‐analytic results, a path analytic model of NPD success was estimated to isolate the unique effects of team characteristics on NPD effectiveness and efficiency. Results indicate that team leadership, team ability, external communication, goal clarity, and group cohesiveness are the critical determinants of NPD team performance. NPD teams with considerable experience and led by a transformational leader are more successful at developing new products. Effective boundary spanning within and outside the organization and a shared understanding of project objectives are paramount to success. Group cohesiveness is also an important predictor of NPD outcomes confirming the importance of esprit de corps within the team. The findings provide product development managers with a blueprint for creating high‐performance NPD teams.     

First among Equals: The Effect of Team Leader Characteristics on the Internal Dynamics of Cross‐Functional Product Development Teams*

Drawing on the path‐goal theory of leadership, the present study examines the effect of team leader characteristics on an array of conflict resolution behavior, collaboration, and communication patterns of cross‐functional new product development (NPD) teams. A hierarchical linear model analysis based on a survey of 246 members from 64 NPD teams suggests that participative management style and initiation of goal structure by the team leader exert the strongest influence on internal team dynamics. Both these leadership characteristics had a positive effect on functional conflict resolution, collaboration, and communication quality within the NPD team while discouraging dysfunctional conflict resolution and formal communications. Comparatively, team leader's consideration, initiation of process structure, and position had a surprisingly weak effect on internal team dynamics. Further, the findings underscore the differential effects on various dimensions of team dynamics, the importance of controlling for project and team characteristics, and the use of multilevel modeling for studying nested phenomena related to NPD teams. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

创新团队公平感知与知识共享行为关系研究——以成员信任为中介变量

创新团队组织形式的蓬勃发展使得团队成员的绩效激励方式成为众多管理者的研究课题。团队中掌握独特隐性知识的成员往往不愿意共享自身的有利于团队的创新知识,从而给团队的发展带来困难。如何针对这类员工做出有利于团队整体绩效提升的激励活动,是创新团队管理者和所有创新团队工作模式研究者的共同目标。通过数据模型的回归,得出如下结论:创新团队的成员公平感知与成员知识共享行为正向相关,成员对互动公平的感知对知识共享行为的影响最为显著。验证了创新团队成员信任在成员公平感知与知识共享行为之间的中介效用。     

The impact of team‐member exchange,differentiation, team commitment,and knowledge sharing on R&D project team performance

This paper integrates team‐member exchange (TMX), affective commitment, and knowledge sharing to examine how work unit TMX influences employees' R&D project team commitment and intention to share knowledge, and how team knowledge‐sharing intention and TMX differentiation influences team performance. The results support the relationships between work unit TMX and employees' intention to share knowledge and team commitment. In addition, the results show that work unit TMX increases intention to share knowledge through increasing group members' team commitment. At the group level, the results support the relationships between team knowledge‐sharing intention and team performance. The results also show that TMX differentiation moderates the relationship between work unit TMX and team performance. That is, greater work unit TMX is more likely to achieve higher team performance in a team with low TMX differentiation as opposed to a team with high TMX differentiation. Implications for theory building, future research, and R&D management are discussed.