Effects of Collaborative Communication on NPD Collaboration Results: Two Routes of Influence

Abstract

Although NPD collaboration with external partners has become the next generation in NPD practice, the discussion concerning how to organize collaboration so as to obtain better results is far from over. Since communication is the most important element in successful interfirm exchange, this study focuses on the impact of collaborative communication and its facets—frequency, formality, reciprocal feedback, and rationality—on NPD collaboration results. In order to explain how collaborative communication can best be managed to enhance NPD collaboration results, this research combines the relational and resource‐based views, proposing the existence of two routes of influence: the direct resource‐based route and the indirect relational route mediated by trust. Using a sample of 207 NPD collaboration projects of innovative firms, empirical findings indicate that reciprocal feedback–rationality and frequency play an important role in product quality and adherence to budget and schedule, respectively, even without trust. Moreover, the trust between partners substantially reinforces the positive influence of reciprocal feedback–rationality on NPD collaboration results and makes the effect of formality significant. Therefore, the two alternative routes are confirmed as important paths to new product success, which provides relevant managerial implications.

Consequences of open innovation: effects on skill-driven recruitment

“…In this context, the "human side" of open innovation has increasingly been recognized as a determinant of the capture and integration of both external and internal sources of knowledge (Bogers et al, 2018;Criscuolo et al, 2018). New sets of technical and social skills and backgrounds are required from the firm's workforce (Petroni et al, 2012;Salge et al, 2013), among other things to improve searching (Dahlander et al, 2016) and to establish collaborative communication, encouraging the development of relationships with external actors (Pemartín et al, 2018).…”

Enhancing software development through project‐based learning and the quality of planning

“…Based also on the literature, we identified four potential moderating factors that influence the impact of PBL on the planning of subsequent software development projects. These were: project uncertainty (Ahmad et al, 2012;Dönmez and Grote, 2018); team collaboration (Frank et al, 2015;Pemartın et al, 2018); project-based structures (Gemünden et al, 2018;Ren et al, 2018); and time pressure (Van Berkel et al, 2016;Cheng and Yang, 2019).…”

Formalized Problem‐Solving Practices and the Effects of Collaboration with Suppliers on a Firm's Product Innovation Performance

“…Thus, firms that rely on formalized practices may become myopic to new external and internal knowledge that does not fit with those practices. Finally, the incentives for local search, reduced variety, and reduced options for communication and transfer of knowledge, translate into reduced transfer, and assimilation of external knowledge (Sorenson, 2003;Pemart ın et al, 2017) and/or lock-in to inefficient technologies, routines, and/or partners (Handfield, Ragatz, Petersen, and Monczka, 1999;Szulanski, 1996). These problems will be amplified in the absence of industry-level knowledge because firms face higher uncertainty, increased coordination problems, more complex information processing, and high demand for innovative approaches (Das, Narasimhan, and Talluri, 2006).…”

“…Buyer and supplier are likely to have different technological backgrounds and experience, and to employ different routines for identifying, evaluating, and selecting among alternative solutions. Buyer and supplier might be experienced in specific forms of learning, patterns of solutions to technological problems, and specific forms of communication and knowledge transfer (Pemartín et al, ). Thus, collaboration for innovation could involve the generation and exchange of a variety of knowledge and information, a situation which might benefit from FPS practices aimed at improving the efficiency of intraorganizational absorption and combination.…”

“…On the one hand, a large body of literature on interorganizational collaboration and organizational learning suggests that both interfirm collaboration and generic intrafirm organizational practices, independently , may lead to remarkable performance gains (Argote and Ingram, ; Faems, Van Looy, and Debackere, ; Nonaka and Takeuchi, ). On the other hand, insights into how interfirm collaboration and intrafirm organizational practices interact and affect these gains are scarce (Pemartín, Rodríguez‐Escudero, and Munuera‐Alemán, ; Schleimer and Faems, ; van Wijk, Jansen, and Lyles, ). This study intends to fill this gap both theoretically and empirically.…”