Purpose – Given the widespread popularity of social media, such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn, theorizing and understanding the user attitude and usage behavior of social media site is fundamental in developing future understandings and deployment of these new technologies. One approach to such studies on drivers of social media usage behavior would be to revisit the technology acceptance model (TAM). The purpose of this paper is to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – Decades of extensive research have focussed on validating the TAM, proposed by Davis (1986), for various types of information systems and communication technologies. TAM forecasts individual adoption and voluntary use of technology. This study examines individual adoption behavior of the most popular social networking site Facebook. The influences on the intention of using social networking based on individual's perceived ease of use (EU), the user's critical mass (CM), social networking site capability (CP), perceived playfulness (PP), trustworthiness (TW), and perceived usefulness (PU) is empirically examined with a primary data set of 398 users of Facebook gathered from a web-based questionnaire survey. Findings – The results demonstrate that the revised social media TAM model proposed in this study supports all the hypotheses of social media usage behavior. The results of this study provide evidence for the importance of additional key variables to TAM in considering user engagement on social media sites and other social-media-related business strategies. Originality/value – Based on our review of existing scientific literature on social media, few empirical studies have been conducted to scientifically evaluate and explain the usage behavior of social media using Facebook. A validated instrument of usage behavior of social media can provide usability experts and practitioners with a validated tool to assess social media acceptance and usage behavior. This can help us gain a better understanding of “who is and who is not using these sites, why and for what purposes” (Boyd and Ellison, 2007).

Deviations from requirements during the product development process can be considered as glitches. Fixing glitches, or problems, during the product development process consumes valuable resources, which may adversely affect product development time and hamper the firm's goal to pursue a first-mover advantage. It is posited that an integrated organizational response can diminish incidences of glitches and improve the ability of the firm to respond to engineering changes, subsequently leading to improved market success. This organizational response frequently includes heavyweight product development managers who are seen as essential catalysts for internal integration. Though internal integration is vital, it is equally important to integrate with customers and suppliers alike because such network partners can provide access to information, knowledge, and unique and complementary resources that are otherwise unavailable to the firm. Findings, which are based on a sample of 191 product development projects in the automotive industry, suggest that some integration routines have a positive impact on product development outcomes and market success, while other routines can in fact hamper the collective effort.

Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by emerald-srm:198285 [] For AuthorsIf you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -This paper seeks to empirically investigate how a heavyweight product manager (HW) can impact the cross-functional team and project performance (PP) through actively influencing the ways and the extent of strategic alignment (SA), shared project mission, and clarity of project targets in the early front-end stage. Design/methodology/approach -Based on past studies on leadership role theory and goal-setting theory for teams, this study hypothesizes that the role of the HW for SA of the project, shared project mission, and clarity of the project target are positively related. The study further hypothesizes that these roles of the HW can have a positive impact on PP measures such as product cost, time, and customer satisfaction. Findings -Primary data collected from 191 new product development (NPD) projects from the US automotive industry were analyzed using structural equation modeling techniques. All the hypotheses presented in this study regarding the role of the HW in a cross-functional team are supported. These roles of the HW also seem to indicate a positive relationship with overall PP. Practical implications -Rather than blindly subscribing to generic and prescriptive "best practices" for the HW, the causal relationship detailed in this study makes it now possible to rationalize the role of HW in cross-functional product development teams. Through formal and informal influence of the HW, the project and the team gain SA, shared mission, and clear project targets that can drive better PP. Originality/value -This is the first study to focus specifically on the role of HW in NPD in a cross-functional team environment.

No abstract

No abstract