020-1051
Organizational Structuring and Project Team Structuring in Integrated Product Development
Project
Rupak Rauniar, University of Houston- Victoria, Department of Management, School of
Business, 3007 North Ben Wilson, Victoria, TX 77901, rauniarr@uhv.edu, 713 436 3677
Greg Rawski, Department of Management, University of Evansville, 1800 Lincoln Ave. Evansville, Indiana 47722, gr17@evansville.edu, 419 270 2300
POMS 22nd Annual Conference
Reno, Nevada, U.S.A.
April 29 to May 2, 2011
1
Organizational Structuring and Project Team Structuring in Integrated Product
Development Project
Rupak Rauniar, University of Houston- Victoria, Department of Management, School of
Business, 3007 North Ben Wilson, Victoria, TX 77901, rauniarr@uhv.edu, 713 436 3677
Greg Rawski, Department of Management, University of Evansville, 1800 Lincoln Ave. Evansville, Indiana 47722, gr17@evansville.edu, 419 270 2300
ABSTRACT
For a superior project result, integrated product development project needs to have a well
structured management approach that promotes the downstream team effort across concurrent
execution of the project with the upstream strategic planning phase of such project. In the current
study we focus organizational level variable, organizational structuring, with IPD project level
variable, project team structuring to study the impact on product design glitches and project
performance. We hypothesize that managing IPD projects with organizational structuring and
project team structuring can lead to reduced product glitches which can enhance overall IPD
project performance. We define organizational structuring of the IPD project to the extent to
which the project is provided with legitimacy and a corporate priority through strategic
alignment, and the upfront appointment of the heavyweight product manager. Similarly, we
define project team structuring of IPD projects to the extent to which the cross-functional teams
of IPD project have a shared project mission, cross-functional teams are integrated, and have
clarity of project targets and tradeoffs.
INTRODUCTION
Concurrent engineering has become a popular method to speed up the new product development
projects and help manufacturing firms seek competitive advantage (Hayes, Wheelright and
Clark, 1988; Meyer, 1993; Patterson, 1993; etc.). Such concurrent product development project,
where project activities and stages are executed simultaneously, is generally facilitated by the
deployment of cross-functional team (Barczak and Wilemon, 1992; Griffin, 1997; McDonough,
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2000; Sarin and Mahajan, 2001; Sarin and McDermott, 2003; Ulrich and Eppinger, 1995; Wind
and Mahajan, 1997; Jayaram and Malhotra, 2010, Koufteros, Rawski, and Rauniar, 2010; etc.).
The IPD project‟s initial stage is referred as front end stage that include activities such as idea
generation, assessments of competition, market, and technology, project justification, action
plan, etc. that are generally strategic and conceptual in nature (Khurana and Rosenthal, 1998).
According to the authors, front end stage requires organizational level analysis and planning.
Once the organization validates the new product concept to be congruent with organizational
strategic agenda, the project enters into the development and implementation stage that involve
concurrent activities of detailed functional and technical design of parts and components,
prototype developments, internal and external testing of components, system testing,
manufacturing process design and development, etc. (Bingham and Quigley, 1990).
Despite its advantages, management of IPD projects is proven to be very challenging (Crawford,
1979; Wheelright and Clark, 1992; Moffat, 1998), especially for complex products such as
automobiles, which involves thousands of engineers and non-engineers of developmental firm,
client, and suppliers who spend years of designing, testing, and integrating hundreds of
thousands of parts (Gokpinar, Hopp and Irvani, 2010). Several recommendations at individual,
team, and firm-levels have been provided in the extant literatures in regard to the effective
management and critical performance factors of new product development.
Overall these
recommendations have called for management attention to factors related to individual, team and
project, and organizational levels.
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For example, Backhouse and Brookes (1996) have suggested that project implementation can be
improved through a good fit of the development firm‟s process and structure along with
management focus, change, and proficiency. Hart (1995) grouped the determinants of new
product development performance into strategic level and project level variables. Strategic level
determinants included organizational culture, organizational strategy, organizational structure,
and top management involvement and orientation. Project level variables represented factors that
related to the specific new product development project under consideration, including processes
and how they were performed, project structure, cooperation between departments, and the
involvement of suppliers in new product development process. The meta-analysis of Henard and
Szymanski (2001) identified four main groups of antecedents of new product development
performance: firm strategy characteristics, firm process characteristics, product characteristics,
and marketplace characteristics. Others have pointed out organizational issues (Bailey, 1999),
team member selection (Gerwin and Moffat, 1977; Stahl et al, 1997); individual member‟s
characteristics (King and Majchrzak, 1996), information sharing and decision making (Krishnan,
1996, Rauniar et al, 2007) to be determinant of project success.
During concurrent detail design and developmental stages of the IPD project, project team
leaders and members are involved in intensive problem solving and decision making process.
These design, development, and tradeoff decisions made across the various stages have to be
consistent and coherent with organizational purpose and its targeted customers‟ needs.
Conflicting and inconsistent decisions to the engineering design solutions at different concurrent
stages of IPD project can lead to design and development of product plagued with problems, or
glitches that can have substantial impact on project performance, such as re-work, scrap, poor
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resource utilization, cost-overruns, poor quality of design, poor quality of conformance, etc. The
extent of product design glitches from the knowledge management perspective have been
reported by Rauniar et al (2007). Similarly the study of Koufteros, Rawski, and Rauniar (2010)
on product glitches highlights the importance of supplier and customer integration with the
project team.
Based on the existing literature that emphasize the role of organizational contextual variables
(for example, Hart, 1995; Backhouse and Brookes, 1996; Krishnan, 1996; Henard and
Szymanski, 2001; etc.) , it appears that the broader reasons of many of project failures is a
mismatch between: (a) the organizational processes at the front end, planning stage of product
development project,
(b) necessary team and project characteristics during project
implementation , and (c) inconsistent decisions and design related technical problem across the
various stages of the IPD project. To be successful, an IPD project needs to have a well
structured management approach that aligns and promotes the downstream design and
development effort with the upstream strategic planning stage. In their meta-study, Henard and
Szymanski‟s (2001) points that the product development literature has generally directed
attention at capturing the effect of project process characteristics, and thereby, ignoring the
organizational level variables. Our current study is directed toward improving IPD performance
by simultaneously addressing management issues of IPD project with the organizational level at
the front end stage and the project team level characteristics at the development and
implementation stages.
There are primarily two objectives of our current paper in the area of IPD project. First, it
integrates the impact of organizational variables of front end stage to the project level variables
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of the project execution stage. In the current study we focus organizational level variable,
organizational structuring, with IPD project level variable, project team structuring. We
hypothesize that managing IPD projects with organizational structuring and project team
structuring can lead to reduced product glitches that, in turn, can enhance overall IPD project
performance. We define organizational structuring of the IPD project to the extent to which the
IPD project has strategic alignment and the upfront appointment of the heavyweight product
manager to lead the project. Similarly, we define project team structuring of IPD projects to the
extent to which the cross-functional teams of IPD project have a shared project mission, are
integrated, and have clarity of key project target tradeoffs. In the current study, we focus
organizational structuring at the front end, planning stage of the project, while we focus project
team structuring issues at the development and implementations stages.
The second contribution of the current study is that we study the extent of project team
structuring on product glitches. Product glitches are the design related problems and bugs in the
new product development process because of poor team structuring. In the current study we
analyze the cause and effect of product design glitches from more of a work integration
perspective. In studying the IPD project performance, we focus on the negative consequence of
product design glitch on overall IPD project performance.
LITERATURE REVIEW
In order to achieve competitive performance, business needs to have a proper fit between its
strategy and structure (Chandler, 1962; Rumelt, 1974; Venkatraman and Camillus, 1984). The
classical theory in strategic management in regard to strategy-structure-performance has also
been extended in the areas of innovation (Teece, 1998). Our current study extends this thinking
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of strategic alignment with structure to explain superior management and performance of IPD
project. We identify two separate structural issues surrounding the IPD project based on the
hierarchical distinction between the organizational and IPD project level factors.
Organizational Structuring at Front End Stage
The initial, front end stage of IPD project includes all activities from the time the opportunity for
a new product idea is conceived, until the final decision to finance the project is made by the
organizational executives. This stage includes concept identification and selection; preliminary
market and customer need identifications and analyses (Kim and Wilemon, 2002; Biyalogorsky,
Boulding, and Staelin, 2006). According to Khurana and Rosenthal (1998), such frontend stage
of the project represents the most critical stage, and if not managed carefully, can negatively
impact the overall project and organizational performances. Management issues at the front end
stage of the project has been highlighted by Jassawalla and Sashittal (2000) in terms of product
strategy, goals, project milestones, powerful project leader, and cross-functional team. This is
the stage where the concept of design-of-quality (Garvin, 1987; Deming, 1986) plays a
detrimental role in defining product success. Such importance of quality at entry in
developmental project has been emphasized in many studies, as noted by Morris (2009) and
Miller and Lessard (2001). Such quality based approach to serve the targeted customers better
requires requires a clear understanding of developmental firm‟s capabilities, priorities, and
customer‟s needs.
Shortage of top management engagement and lack of organizational attention at the early stage
of the project can lead to poor performance (Sosa et al, 2007). While we recognize the
complexity and uncertainty surrounding such early stage of the project, our study posits that
management needs to pay attention two important issues of establishing and ensuring a strategic
fit of the project and providing a heavyweight product manager leadership to the project. In our
current study, collectively these two variables are conceptualized to constitute organizational
structuring important for managing the front end stage of IPD project.
Strategic Fit
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New product strategy has been widely recognized as vital business priority by high performing
businesses (Booz, Allen and Hamilton, 1982; Cooper, 2001; Griffin, 1997; Mercer, 1994).The
new product strategy should clearly establish the strategic need and fit of the IPD project with
the overall organizational strategy. Strategic fit is the extent to which a firm‟s overall business,
product, and technology guide the product development content and processes (Wheelwright and
Clark, 1992). Top management‟s strategic view of designing and building a new product is
consistent with the principles of project value management which advocate a shared process by
project stakeholders to examine function within the organization-wide context and optimize new
design solutions to meet project objectives (Neasbey et al. 1999).
Heavyweight Product Manager
According to Wheelwright and Clark (1992), a key dimension to differentiate the different types
of lightweight, heavyweight, and autonomous teams is the role of team leader. Compared to the
lightweight leader, who functions more as a coordinator than a leader, the heavyweight team
leader is directly responsible to senior management for all the work done by the product
development team (Wheelwright and Clark, 1992). In their study, Clark and Fujimoto (1990)
found that the key to product integrity is leadership from heavyweight managers who focus on
devising processes to create powerful product concepts, and making sure that the concepts are
translated into design and manufacturing process details. They are generally the chief engineers
with substantial expertise and formal and informal influence in product development projects
(Schilling and Hill, 1998). Fujimoto et al. (1996) reported that heavyweight managers help
organizations to formulate product concepts and implement them coherently across
organizational functions.
The innovation literatures emphasize the importance of “promotion” leader who is
knowledgeable about the organization needs and supports the innovation process (Hauschildt and
Gemuenden, 1999; Hauschildt and Kirchmann, 2001). Benefits of heavyweight include product
innovation (Koufteros and Marcoulides, 2006); internal coordination, product planning, and
concept development (Zhang and Doll, 2001), customer and supplier integration with
development team (Koufteros, Rawski and Rauniar, 2010) and reduced ambiguity and
uncertainty (Koufteros et al., 2005). Such IPD project leaders provide objective advice to the
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cross-functional team about emergent questions, interpret needs, balance different points of view,
and arbitrate when conflicts of interest arise (Topalian, 2000). They become the guardian of the
concept and not only react and respond to the interests of others, but also see that the choices
made across the concurrent processes are consistent and in harmony with the basic design
concept (Clark and Wheelwright, 1992).
Project Team Structuring at Development and Implementation Stages
Once the organizational level decisions are made to move on with a particular product concept,
the IPD project enters into the subsequent stages of detailed product design, development and
implementation where the cross-functional teams are deployed to execute concurrent activities.
Coordination and integration theorists (Thompson, 1967; Van de Ven and Koenig, 1976) argue
that cross-functional interaction across distinct temporal phases (planning, development and
manufacturing) requires unique integration mechanisms. The IPD project execution requires
ongoing problem solving, decision making, and information sharing regarding partial or
complete solution. As each concurrent stages progress, cross-functional teams exchange their
respective final status with others. Based on such coordination, the teams update their
assumptions and iterate in parallel until no one sees any further need to change its solutions
(Mihm et al, 2010). At each design iterations, re-configurations or changes (Eisenhardt and
Tabrizi, 1995), the development teams face tradeoff decisions among competing cost, quality,
and time considerations that are essential to maintain the internal and external product integrity
(Clark and Fujimoto, 1990). Lack of clear targets decisions can lead to several problems for the
cross functional team, including lack of engagement (Katzenbach, 1998), difficulty in resolving
conflict (Amason, 1996), lack of commitment (Wooldridge and Floyd, 1990), and difficulty in
reaching closure in a timely fashion (Harrison, 1996). Therefore, from the project management
perspective, the issues of cross-functional team integration and the characterization of such
9
teams by a clear understanding of project needs and expectations seems to be crucial for a
successful IPD project management and outcome.
Shared Project Mission
Crawford (2002) and Clark and Wheelwright (1992) argue that project mission is captured in an
explicit, measurable project charter and is usually articulated even before the team is selected.
Shared project mission refers to the extent of the acceptance of the IPD project mission by the
cross-functional team (Rauniar et al, 2008). A shared sense of organizational identity is
emphasized by Ouchi‟s (1979) thought on “clan control” in terms of a high degree of shared
goals, visions, values, and beliefs. Once the IPD project has been strategically justified, the
overall project mission of a specific IPD project needs to be communicated, articulated, and
rationalized so that it can provide the IPD cross-functional team members with an identity and
overall direction of the project. This should take place at the early stage of the development stage
in order to mitigate the cross-functional team member‟s competing social identities and loyalties
(Holland et al., 2000; Webber, 2001). Lack of common purpose can otherwise lead to each
function members (production, R&D, marketing, engineering, etc.) operating in a fragmented
and separated manner who will tend to identify strongly with its own function. Barriers of
communication can exist and, complex problems may not get resolved in a timely and consistent
manner (Ashforth and Mael, 1989).
Clear Project Target Tradeoffs
The extent of a clear understanding among cross-functional team members about project target
specifications in terms of cost, quality and time can be referred to as clarity of project targets
tradeoffs (Rauniar et al, 2007). While a shared mission establishes the common road map for the
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cross-functional team, clarity of IPD targets establishes the stepping stones to fulfill the overall
IPD shared mission. In order to avoid any conflicts and to enhance work integration within the
cross-functional team, IPD project‟s clear target needs to be established in the early stage of the
project. Clarity of project target tradeoffs not only can help in identifying the best solution for
design problems, but can also help to identify new opportunities (Enright, 2001). Clear
understanding of project target can ensure that no functional goals and objectives take
precedence over the overall IPD project‟s needs. Clarity of project targets requires unambiguous
definition, rich communication, and common understanding of project targets among team
members (Marquardt and Reynolds, 1996). Murmann (1994) argues that having clear targets
from the early stage may be critical in improving cycle time (i.e. time to market), teamwork, and
overall process productivity because it enables members to focus resources faster and more
effectively. Lack of clear decisions can lead to several problems for the cross functional team,
including lack of engagement (Katzenbach, 1998), difficulty in resolving conflict (Amason,
1996), lack of commitment (Wooldridge and Floyd, 1990), and difficulty in reaching closure in a
timely fashion (Harrison, 1996). Larson and LaFasto (1989) found that every effectively
functioning team had a clear understanding of its objectives. The research of Gupta et al. (1992)
revealed how R&D, marketing, and manufacturing managers in NPD make trade-off decisions
among clearly specified critical project measures.
Cross-functional Team Integration
Henke et al. (1993) and Burke et al. (2006) reminds us that the most often cited barriers of
effective product development team functioning is when there is a mismanagement of the
internal dynamics of the team in the project. As cross-functional team engages in concurrent
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activities, the issue of conflict resolution (Pinto, Pinto, and Prescott, 1993; Song, Xie, and Dyer,
2000), collaboration (Jassawalla and Sashittal, 1998; Pinto, Pinto, and Prescott, 1993), and
communication (e.g., Ancona and Caldwell, 1992b; Griffin and Hauser, 1992) behavior of the
cross-functional team can have a tremendous influence on IPD project performance. When
partial solutions are being developed across the concurrent activities, there is a great need for
more collaboration (March and Simon, 1958; Thompson, 1967), and hence, for very frequent
intra-team problem-solving and communication.
Teams perform well when all the different tasks and interdependencies among the team members
are coordinated (Wageman, 2001).
In concurrent activities healthy internal dynamics are
essential for effective cross-functional teams and, consequently, for the successful development
of new products (Burke et al., 2006). Integrated team facilitates team learning and shared
knowledge through joint problem solving and information sharing. Further, Jassawalla and
Sashittal (1998) suggest that team integration in new product development project is indicative
of general integrative and supportive interpersonal cooperation among team members.
Product Glitch
In the concurrent and iterative processes of IPD projects, any changes, redesign, or updates in a
concurrent activity needs to be coordinated in a timely manner in order to preserve the overall
integrity of the product being developed. Typically, such changes or correction to the parts or
components during the developmental stage require an issuance of engineering change order
(Gopinkar, Hopp, and Irvani, 2010). Past studies (for example, Clark and Fujimoto, 1991; Huang
and Mak, 1999, Loch and Terwiesch, 1999; Koufteros, Rawski, and Rauniar, 2010; Gopinkar,
12
Hopp, and Irvani, 2010) cites some of the major reasons for engineering change order to be when
an individual part or component fail to meet the design specification, or when a product changes
are made that affect part designs, or when two or more parts have interface problems. Glitches
are problematic because the design fails to meet the requirements for a particular constituent
group(s) such as customers, part suppliers, and/ or manufacturing and fabrication requirements.
Glitches or problems in new product development project can be design related (Hoopes, 2001)
or development or production related (Hendricks and Singhal, 2003) which is similar to the
concepts of quality of design and quality of conformance popular in quality literatures. In this
study, we focus primarily on the problems stemming from product design related issues in the
cross-functional team environment of IPD project. A well managed IPD project that minimizes
design glitches can provide more benefits to the project or to the organization than the project
that is plagued with design glitches across various stages of development and implementations.
IPD Project Performance
The purpose of the development project should be "better, faster, and cheaper"(US DoD, 1996).
In order to assess the impact of our recommendations of organizational structuring, project team
structuring and reduced glitches in IPD projects, we define IPD project performance in terms of
shortened product development time, reduced product cost, and high customer satisfaction. This
is consistent with Griffin‟s (1997) widely accepted recommendation of product development
performance in terms of schedule, cost, and quality measures. Past studies on concurrent
engineering have reported the benefits of lowering product costs and achieving improvements in
quality (Takeuchi and Nonaka, 1986; Clark, 1989), and also lowering time to market as well
(Clark and Fujimoto, 1991; Millson, Raj, and Wilemon, 1992; Rosenthal and Tatikonda, 1993).
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Product development time is the time required from product concept to product introduction
(Gupta et al., 1992; Clark and Fujimoto, 1991; Gupta and Wilemon, 1990; Dyer et al., 1999;
etc.). Product cost is the total cost associated with the IPD project to develop and manufacture
new products. Product cost includes materials, labor (e.g. fabrication and assembly cost) and
overhead (e.g. development cost, equipment cost) (Garrison and Noreen, 1997). An effective
product development team reduces the costs of material and labor through simplifying the
manufacturing processes and reducing the numbers of component parts (Clark, 1989; Clark and
Fujimoto, 1991). Customer satisfaction measures the satisfaction of the customer for a product
designed for a certain target market (Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1987).
RESEARCH FRAMEWORK
In project-based activities, teams are the prevalent structures that fulfill organizational goals
(Edmondson and Nembhard, 2009). Organizational structuring through strategic alignment and
presence of a heavyweight product manager at the onset of the project can contribute to a better
cross-functional team dynamics during the downstream activities through shared project mission,
clear project target tradeoffs and cross-functional team integration in several ways. According to
McDonough and Griffin (2000), firms with consistent, high new product development
performance established a strategy and made sure to clearly articulate that strategy to team
members so that they understood it. As developmental activities iterate, more insight is gained
and the interdependent, concurrent activities need to be re-aligned to reflect any changes. To
assess and accept such changes, team needs to clearly understand the contribution of such
14
changes to project targets and overall mission. When there is a common, agreed upon goals,
agreements to the decisions are made more readily (Leenders et al., 2007).
Project leaders are primarily responsible for defining team goals and for developing and
structuring the team to accomplish missions (Nygren and Levine, 1996; Zaccaro, Rittman, and
Marks, 2001). They are the ones who can help the team with assigned mission into a workable
plan to accomplish several objectives for the team (Fleishman et al., 1991; Hackman and Walton,
1986). In cross-functional teams the leader is often in the unique position of being able to see the
whole picture and understand how different sources of expertise fit together (Wheelwright and
Clark, 1995). A positive influence of the team manager on team effectiveness and consequently
on IPD performance is expected because such individuals effectively facilitate the problemsolving communication from „outside‟. Therefore we offer following hypothesis:
H1: Organizational structuring through strategic fit and heavyweight product manager is
positively related to IPD project team structuring.
An IPD team with shared project mission and clear project target tradeoffs would be able to
readily identify and establish the new product solutions, concurrent task needs, requirements and
interdependencies. Such shared project mission and clear project targets provides an „„enabling
performance situation for task performance strategies that are appropriate to the work, and to the
setting in which it is performed‟‟ (Hackman and Walton, 1986). Sharp et al. (2000) propose that
shared mission, purpose, goals and direction are among the key characteristics of a highperformance team. Providing teams with clear, consistent targets can be a way to create
15
boundaries for the cross-functional team so that the team is not continually redefining its
direction (Bowen et al., 1994) and wasting valuable project resources. We argue that, in a poorly
structured IPD environment, cross-functional team members will tend to optimize a “local”
performance measure, specific to their task and process. But concurrent interdependence of
material, work outputs, design, and information requires coordination and communication
process among other team members (Mihm, Loch, and Huchzermeier, 2003). A poorly structured
team can be engaged in myopic, selfish behavior and sacrifice too many solution qualities during
problem-solving activities as they fail to perceive and take into consideration of other‟s view
(Mihm et al, 2003; Rivkin and Siggelkov, 2003). On the other hand, project team structuring
through shared project mission, clear project targets, and integrated cross-functional team
encourages team members to share problems, work cooperatively toward the common
overarching goal (McDonough, 2000), engage in functional conflict resolutions (Antonioni,
1996), and creates a learning environment within the team (Sarin and McDermott, 2003).
Overall, such team characteristics should encourages and help in collectively addressing and
reducing glitches. Therefore, we propose:
H2: Project team structuring is negatively related to product design glitches.
In a loosely coordinated IPD team, individual members may not know what other members of
the team know or doing and are likely to rely on noisy and often incorrect signals of expertise
(Bunderson 2003). Decisions based on such incorrect information can lead design and
development related glitches where the design solutions fail to meet customers‟ expectations and
needs. The severity of product glitch to the IPD project performance, i.e., cost, customer
16
satisfaction, and development time, will depend on when and where such product glitch occurred
in the project.
The negative consequences of glitches in overlapped stages are amplified when glitches go
undetected to a later stage of the project. Once the team identifies the glitches internally,
information among the interdependent teams needs to be quickly exchanged and processed so
that proper corrective action is taken to resolve the glitch and works among the interdependent
concurrent tasks are adjusted (Hoegl et al., 2004). In order to fix the glitch, the IPD team may
have to revisit various interdependent stages of the IPD process to investigate the cause(s) and
effect(s) of a particular glitch for the remedy. These changes, if observed late in the
developmental projects, can have “snowball” effects from one component to another, in some
cases in cycles, causing long resolution times (Terwiesch and Loch, 1999; Sosa et al., 2004).
Fixing glitches require rework often entails delays and additional development costs (Ball et al.,
1998). If not identified or resolved during the product design and development, glitches can lead
to inaccurate forecasting, poor planning, parts shortage, quality problems, capacity shortfall, or
operational constraints (Fisher and Raman, 1996). Overall, product glitches have been reported
to affect a firm‟s short- and long-term profitability (Hendricks and Singhal, 2003). Therefore,
we propose
H3: Product glitches are negatively related to IPD project performance.
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Figure 2 represents our research model that identifies the relationships between the
organizational structuring, project team structuring, product glitches, and IPD project
performance.
Organizational
Structuring:
-Project Strategic
Fit
-Heavyweight
Product Manager
H1: +
+
H3: -
H2: Project Team
Structuring:
Design
-Shared Project Mission
Glitches
IPD
Performance:
-Development Time
-Clear Project Targets
-Development Cost
-Team Integration
-Customer
Satisfaction
Figure 2: Proposed Research Model
PROPOSED RESEARCH METHOD
Based on the previous literature review, the conceptual model proposed in Figure 2 provides the
foundation for the empirical research for this study. An extensive literature review, case studies
and structured interviews with product development professionals (managers and teammembers) and academicians will help to define the domain of constructs and facilitate item
generation. For most items, a five-point Likert scale would be used; where 1 = strongly disagree,
and 5 = strongly agree. A different scale would be used for the general demographic questions.
Modified items from previous studies would be presented to product development managers,
product development team members, and academicians for their feedback. Items would be
added, modified, deleted and finalized on the basis of their qualitative feedback. For our
research, we will contact the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) to provide us with mailing
list of professionals in the automotive industry involved in IPD projects. A survey would be
18
administered for the large-scale sample to empirically investigate the proposed conceptual
research model of Figure 2.
Statistical analysis of our large-scale data included tests for reliability, factorial validity, and test
for discriminant validity. We then used structural equation modeling to test our measurement
and structural model to investigate our hypothesized model of Figure 2.
CONCLUSION
In this theoretical paper, we have specified a number of fundamental components necessary for
superior IPD project management and performance. These are succinctly categorized in terms of
organizational structuring needed to manage the early, front end stage of the project, project and
team structure that is crucial for managing development and implementation stages, product
design glitches, and IPD project performance. In spite of vast literatures in new product
development, there are few conceptual frameworks that identify critical management factors at
two distinct stages of IPD projects. Accordingly, we have identified strategic alignment of the
IPD project and presence of heavyweight product mangers as important management activities
during the planning stage of the project. Similarly, during the detailed design, development, and
implementation stages, our theory suggest shared project mission, clear project target tradeoffs,
and cross-functional team integration can provide proper project and team structuring that can
drive product design glitches low. We also posit that lower product design glitches will drive
higher IPD project performance.
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