Management control, role expectations and job satisfaction of new product development teams: The moderating effect of participative decision-making

Abstract

This work examines the relationships between formal and informal management controls (i.e. output, process and professional) and job satisfaction of new product development (NPD) teams. In particular, the study investigates the direct and indirect effects of management controls on job satisfaction through role expectations (i.e. role conflict and role ambiguity) and the moderating effect of participative-decision making. Results are based on a sample of 197 NPD projects. Our findings indicate that management controls have differential effects on role ambiguity, role conflict and job satisfaction of NPD team. In particular, NPD teams respond more favorable to professional and output controls than to process controls. Relatedly, participative decision making was found to moderate the relationships between output, process, professional controls and role expectations.