The Effects of Process Orientations on Collaboration Technology Use and Outcomes in Product Development

Abstract

Notwithstanding interest in implementing information technologies (ITs) that facilitate collaboration among employees, there has been limited research that examines how such technologies influence collaboration in strategic business processes, such as new product development (NPD), and how this influence is contingent on the nature of the process. We develop and test a model that posits that employees’ collaboration technology use in NPD will influence collaboration outcomes, such as IT-enabled collaboration capability and collaboration satisfaction. The model postulates that NPD involves multiple process orientations—exploration, exploitation, and ambidexterity—and that these orientations have a moderating effect on the relationship between collaboration technology use and outcomes. We conducted two studies in a major pharmaceutical company (N = 1,749 and 1,454, respectively) and found support for our model. We found that the effects of collaboration technology use on outcomes were stronger for employees involved in the NPD process phase that had an ambidexterity orientation. Our findings contribute to theory and practice related to the use of collaboration technology in the NPD process by offering insights on how process orientations influence the dynamics of the relationship between employees’ use of collaboration technologies and associated outcomes.