Expert Journal of Business and Management (Nov 2014)

Performance Improvement by Functional-Respectively Competence-Diversity in New Product Development

  • Christoph STAITA

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 2, no. 2
pp. 62 – 71

Abstract

Read online

This paper demonstrates the latest research results of the relationship between cross functional product development teams and project respectively team performance. The aim of this paper is to support the basic hypothesis of the author, which is “The higher the technical draughters’ integration intensity in a 3D CAD (Computer Aided Design) product development project, the higher the economic and socio-psychological efficiency within that project”, with the findings of recent research. Besides studying standard references, a systematic inquiry, using 2 scientific databases, Emerald and EBSCO was performed to study cross-functionality in New Product Development (NewPD). The increase of functional diversity in development teams which is supposed to promote performance is an inadequate variable. Essential to make a cross-functional team successful are competence diversity and familiarity. The intention is to apply competence diversity not only for company wide teams but also in single working units as in mechanical development departments of medium-sized companies.

Keywords