Suggestions for Future Research

This research suggests seven important opportunities for future research. First, one promising possibility is a study of a large number of new product development teams from varied industries in Taiwan and the U.S. Hence, replicating and extending this study in other industries may provide a basis for an external validation of the framework tested here. This would mean that any firm or industry-specific effects would presumably apply to all participating new product development teams, and might provide a clear test of the basic research hypotheses.

Ideally, this research should use a longitudinal design, so that the direction of causality could be inferred. In combination with the results of the present study, this would provide a clearer picture of how team characteristics and organization contextual factors influence new product quality.

Second, the study should be replicated to include new product development teams with a

wider range of countries in order to understand the effects of cultural differences on the relationships between new product development teams and new product quality. Because the research narrowly focused on differences between American new product development team members and members from Taiwanese new product development team, therefore the results may not to be generalizable to other countries. This limitation is the same one that Oyserman et al. (2002) had in their cross-national research. They suggested that narrow focus on differences between European American undergraduates and undergraduates from either a single East Asian country or a single American racial or ethic minority group limited generalizability to other countries, racial groups, or ethic groups. Thus, the follow-up study focusing on the effects of cross-culture on new product quality might be conducted in the form of increasing new product development teams which are from individualist and collectivist countries, such as Australia, United Kingdom and Canada representing individualist cultures and Thailand, South Korea and Indonesia for collectivist cultures (Hofstede, 1980).

Third, although tenure diversity did not significantly influence new product quality in this study, ‘team characteristics’ was still the most frequently cited reason, approximately 58%, for a positive new product development experience (Barczak & Wilemon, 2003). Thus, extensions of this study might examine the effect of other factors of team characteristics, which include physical composition and team process. A potential research area of physical composition is the longevity of new product development team. Longevity refers to the duration for which team members have worked together to complete the project. It has been suggested that as the duration of the projects increases, members develop, through shared socialization and shared experience, a common understanding about the team and its environment, which can create a strong bond among team members, increase collaborative behaviors, and in turn improve team performance (Katz, 1982; Sethi & Nicholson, 2000).

Fourth, in addition to team longevity of physical composition, another factor of team process, outcome interdependence, should be explored in the future research. When members are accountable to the team and not merely to their functional areas, and their rewards are linked to the performance of the project rather only to their performance on functional tasks, cooperative attitude is created among team members (Wilder, 1986). This attitude helps reduce the adverse effect of interfunctional biases and stereotypes, and promotes acceptance of members from other areas. Thus, high interdependence can enhance members’ intrinsic involvement in the project and create a strong sense of commitment to the development of a superior and successful new product (Wageman, 1995).

Fifth, another potentially important variable of team process, team efficacy, could be examined in future research. Team efficacy is a team’s belief in its ability to perform effectively (Lindsley, Brass, & Thomas, 1995). Because team efficacy signals what a team thinks it can do, the level of team efficacy is often related to how much effort the team expends, and it has been found to be a determinant of team effectiveness (Campion, Medsker, & Higgs, 1993; Earley, 1993; Zaccaro, Blair, Peterson, & Zazanis, 1995 ). This follows logically from social cognitive research regarding individual work behavior, which has demonstrated that the higher the level of self-efficacy, the better an individual performs (Bandura, 1997). Theoretically, however, it seems likely that team efficacy is distinct from the individual beliefs team members hold about themselves or their team, because team efficacy arises through team interaction and the process of collective cognition. These same collective processes do not occur during self-efficacy formation or when members form individual beliefs about their group (Gibson, 1999).

Sixth, a potential research area is how reward structures affect new product quality.

Reward structures have been identified as one of the most important determinants of interfunctional integration among organizational employees and units (Coombs & Gomez-Mejia,

1991). The use of rewards as a means of controlling, managing, and enhancing performance has been well established. However, organizational reward and evaluation structures have not kept pace with the changes in the work environment (Wallace, 1987). Robbins and Finley (1995) contend that outdated reward structures are a common reason teams fail in organizations.

Pascarella (1997) notes that two major questions confront organizations that actively use new product development teams: how and when to reward such teams. Thus, an examination of how to distribute rewards among team members and on what criteria the team rewards should be based offers a fruitful area of future exploration.

Finally, the influence of information technology on new product quality has received little attention in the area of new product development. Yet, information technology has assumed an increasingly important role in enterprises as a means of improving work efficiency and performance. Thus, firms are investing more each year to improve their information technology systems in order to boost their productivity. In addition, information technology has been regarded as a collaborative tool that enhances organizational and team performance, especially for those working in virtual environments (Coleman, 1997). The impact of information technology on new product quality is worth noting since such upgrades represent a costly endeavor. The specifics need to be addressed not only in relationship to new product quality, but also in relationship to the capability of information integration of new product development teams. Thus, future research should incorporate information technology into organization contextual factors and then test if information technology influences new product quality for new product development teams and is conducive to information integration for team members.