Research On The Influence Of Team Characteristics And Knowledge Management On New Product Development Performance

The failure rate for new products far exceeds that for established ones. Why put your reputation on the line? Why sink a fortune into developing ideas that may in the end bring little or no revenue into the organization? The answer to this is simple: in the long-term companies cannot survive by solely relying on"old knowledge". Even companies such as McDonalds, famed for their instantly recognizable products, understand that keeping ahead of the competition requires a consensus that nothing lasts forever-no matter how good your product or service. The company must have been ahead competitive awareness. The development of new products and the improvement of existing ones may be the lifeblood of many organizations. Still, given today's competitive environment, organizations that fail to develop new products are exposing themselves to extreme risk and an uncertain future. With this in mind, many of those involved with the organization, especially marketers, are constantly in search of new or improved product to satisfy their customers better.Overall, new product development is a complex, competitive, costly process which must integrate several disciplines into a single, focused effort to develop new product successfully. It is the dynamic balance of many factors which spells the difference between success and failure. Successful new product development is effected by Long-term business goals, research and development initiatives and directions, facility operations and capabilities, technological realities and potentialities, resource availability and management, marketing strategies, a ready customer base, fragmented markets, social and government constraints, capital shortage, shorter product life cycles, as well as the higher cost associated with the new product development process. Overcoming the barriers resulted from these factors is imperative if the firm want to achieve its NPD goals.In order to cope with high turbulent external environment, taking knowledge management as its core, cross-functional team as its main body, integrating other factors, and realizing the dynamic balance of many factors are important path to successful NPD. Therefore, this paper constructs a theory model using variables of team characteristics, knowledge management, NPD performance, product innovation and environment turbulent. The theory model focuses on the main effect between team characteristics, knowledge and NPD performance, and the moderating effect of product innovation and environment turbulent, aiming to open out what team characteristics benefit to knowledge management, the influencing mechanism of knowledge management on NPD performance, and if the relationships between knowledge management and NPD performance are different under the contingency function of product innovation and environment turbulent.Many researchers point out the core function of knowledge management on NPD performance, but there are little empirical literatures about the basic process of knowledge management, the antecedents and contingency factors of knowledge management are still unclear, and the NPD process centered by knowledge management needs to study further. Based on systemic literature review, points out frontier theory research question, and the results have practical significance on effective team building and knowledge management.The paper is centering around five basic problems:①the impact of team characteristics on knowledge management process;②the relationships among different knowledge management process;③the impact of knowledge management process on NPD performance;④the moderating effect of product innovation on the relationship between knowledge management process and NPD performance;⑤the moderating effect of environment turbulent on the relationship between knowledge management process and NPD performance. Using data from questionnaires of 206 NPD projects in China, the paper examines the theory model and the hypotheses. Then discuss the empirical results.The content of the papers include 7 parts.Firstly,the paper points out research focus, state the theory and practical significance, and introduce the research content and research route.Secondly, systemic literature review and appraise. This part analyzes the basic theory, including knowledge management theory, innovation theory, human capital theory, organizational learning theory, social capital theory, Transactive Memory Theory and public goods theory. Then this part reviews the NPD theory evolutionary path in detail, mainly analyzing the research topic of recent 10 years, and research content of 69 empirical papers. Based on literature review, this paper divided factors that impact successful NPD into four categories: factors in external environment level, external relationships factors, organization level and project factors, the sub-factor of each category are also analyzed. There are still two limitation of current NPD research: the function of knowledge management deserves much attention, and the factors are more independent and are shortage of organic relationship among them.Thirdly, according to current research, combination with NPD practice, the paper identify the basic knowledge management process, which play key role on success NPD, and identify the team characteristics that play key role on knowledge management. The paper divided knowledge management into three dimensions: knowledge acquisition, knowledge creation and knowledge combination, and divided team characteristics into four dimensions: team functional diversity, external relationship, internal communication and trust. Based on the basic logic relationships among variables, the third chapter establishes a conceptual model.Fourthly, based on the theoretical analysis, puts forward 23 hypotheses. The basic hypotheses include: functional diversity has positive effect on knowledge acquisition, creation and combination; external network has positive knowledge acquisition; internal communication has positive impact on knowledge creation and knowledge combination, and has negative impact on knowledge acquisition. Internal trust has positive impact on knowledge creation and combination, and has negative impact on knowledge acquisition. Knowledge acquisition, knowledge creation and knowledge combination has positive impact on NPD performance, knowledge acquisition has positive impact on knowledge creation and combination, and knowledge creation has positive impact on knowledge combination. Product innovation and environment turbulent has positive moderating impact on the relationship between knowledge management process and NPD performance.Fifthly, carry on empirical analysis. Based on the conclusion of existing measurement of relative variables, combining Chinese NPD practice, through several discussions, expertise consultant, and pilot research, the paper forms final questionnaires. The data come from 206 Chinese NPD project. After examining the legitimacy of data through factor analysis, reliability analysis and correlation analysis, the paper do empirical analysis using regression analysis. The results shows that 13 hypotheses are supported and 10 hypotheses are not supported.Sixthly, the paper discusses the empirical results and mainly discussing against the basic relationships among variables, points out theoretical value and practical inspire. Seventhly, the paper concludes the basic conclusion and research innovation, and points out future research direction.The basic conclusions are: team functional diversity has positive impact on knowledge acquisition and combination; team communication has positive impact on knowledge acquisition and combination; team trust has positive impact on knowledge acquisition and combination; team communication has positive impact on team communication; knowledge acquisition and combination has positive impact on NPD performance; knowledge acquisition has positive impact on knowledge creation and combination, and knowledge creation has positive impact on knowledge combination; environment turbulent has positive moderating impact on the relationship between knowledge management process and NPD performance.