Antecedents and Consequences of Political Behavior in New Product Development Teams

Abstract

According to the political perspective on strategic decision making, political decisions are the results of a process in which the preferences of the most powerful dominate over those of the less powerful. The conceptualization of political behavior accounts for issues, such as negotiation, bargaining, and power, which are central to this perspective. Since strategic decisions during the new product development (NPD) process are made by team members, they are a mass of action, interaction, and counteraction. This means that the strategic decision-making process during NPD can be subject to political behavior. This study extends research on political behavior into the realm of NPD teams by examining the impact of six contextual variables (project importance, project uncertainty, project motive, trust, functional diversity, and demographic diversity) associated with two types of context (project and team environment) on the practice of political behavior in NPD teams. The study also examines the impact of political behavior on speed to market considering the moderating impact of environmental turbulence. Using primary and cross-sectional data obtained from 103 Turkish NPD teams, our results showed that project importance, project motive, and functional diversity significantly influence political behavior. Interestingly, our results indicated that political behavior positively influences speed to market. We present and discuss our empirical results, provide implications for both theory and practice, and discuss research limitations.