RECOGNITION AND RECONCILIATION OF DIFFERENCES IN INTERPRETATION OF MISALIGNMENTS WHEN COLLABORATIVE TECHNOLOGIES ARE INTRODUCED INTO NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT TEAMS.

Abstract

This paper contributes to the effective management of new product development (NPD) teams that are coping with the introduction of electronic collaborative technology. CT serves a dual role in such teams as a catalyst for change and as a medium through which change is managed. These virtual NPD teams also must deal increasingly with trust and diversity issues as more team members represent different companies, locations and time zones. This paper synthesizes and extends existing theories of how teams adopt and adapt to CT by recognizing misalignments between technology, task, organization, and the group, and then devising appropriations to deal with them. Existing theories give inadequate attention to differences among team members in the recognition of misalignments, interpretation of their origin, proposed corrective actions, and the reconciliation of these differences. Lack of trust and diversity in ethnicity, gender, and functional expertise among team members exacerbate differences in recognition of misalignments and their reconciliation. Propositions that relate to the recognition of misalignments, and their reconciliation are developed. The capability to recognize and resolve such differences is as important as eliminating or reducing misalignments themselves. We characterize the former as a second-order or strategic capability to distinguish it from the latter, which is tactical.