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Knowledge Perspectives of New Product Development pp 29–48Cite as

Factors Affecting the Performance of New Product Development Teams: Some European Evidence

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Part of the book series: Innovation, Technology, and Knowledge Management ((ITKM))

Abstract

New product development often necessitates activities that are performed by different departments or units within the same or between different organizations. To counteract coordination and communication problems that may arise across unit boundaries, many enterprises introduce cross-functional new product development (NPD) teams to direct and control the development process. The objective of this work is to address the lack of attention paid to the innovation processes that occurs within organizational teams, when examining innovation in organizations. Most studies focus on individual, organizational, or even interorganizational-level conceptualizations to examine innovation in organizations (Organization Science 3(3): 383–397, 1992; Academy of Management Journal 48(2): 346–357, 2005), thus failing to identify the crucial role that teams play during innovation development.

To this end, we review those factors that exert important influences on the functioning and performance of NPD teams, and we illustrate their relevance by providing concrete evidence from large European organizations that actively engage in collaborative new product development. These illustrations are extracted from Innovation Impact, a major research project focusing on collaborative R&D comprising over 70 detailed case studies from all over Europe (Innovation Impact – Final Report, European Commission, DG Entreprise, 2008).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The terms “team” and “group” will be used interchangeably in this study, referring to a collection of individuals that exist within an organizational context, have clearly defined membership, and interact and share responsibility for the accomplishment of a common goal or task (Hackman 1987).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management Science and Technology, Athens University of Economics and Business, Athens, Greece

    Klas Eric Soderquist

  2. Department of People Management, EADA Business School, Barcelona, Spain

    Konstantinos Kostopoulos

Authors
  1. Klas Eric Soderquist
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  2. Konstantinos Kostopoulos
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Correspondence to Klas Eric Soderquist .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Grenoble Ecole de Management, rue Pierre Sémard 12, Grenoble CX, 38003, France

    Dimitris G. Assimakopoulos

  2. School of Business, George Washington University, Washington, 20052, District of Columbia, USA

    Elias G. Carayannis

  3. Shorenstein Asia Pacific Research, Center (APARC), Stanford University, Serra St. 616, Stanford, 94305, California, USA

    Rafiq Dossani

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Soderquist, K.E., Kostopoulos, K. (2012). Factors Affecting the Performance of New Product Development Teams: Some European Evidence. In: Assimakopoulos, D., Carayannis, E., Dossani, R. (eds) Knowledge Perspectives of New Product Development. Innovation, Technology, and Knowledge Management. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0248-0_2

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