Virtual R&D Teams: A New Model for Product Development

Abstract

Increased global competitions have urged small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to develop new products faster. Virtual research and development (R&D) teams in SMEs can offer a solution to speed up time-to-market of new product development (NPD). However, factors that affect the effectiveness of virtual teams for NPD are still not adequately verified. This paper presents the correlations between virtual R&D team constructs and virtual team effectiveness by developing a "Virtual Research and Development Team" (ViR&DT) model. The items, which may influence the effectiveness of virtual teams, are taken from the literature. Through an online survey and by application of structural equation modeling (SEM) technique, the proposed model (ViR&DT) has been tested. The results suggest that the process construct is strongly correlated to the effectiveness of virtual teams. Therefore, NPD managers in virtual R&D teams should concentrate on the process of new product development rather than simply equipping the teams with the latest technology or employing highly qualified experts. Further empirical research is recommended to fully explore and appreciate the breadth of application of the ViR&DT model. This paper is a part of my PhD journey.

Virtual Leadership in Complex Multiorganizational Research and Development Programs

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“…Even though all elements of my study were not addressed in a single existing research product, I gathered research material from a variety of perspectives that collectively make up a complex organizational system concept. The literature regarding overall complex multiorganizational systems fell into the following areas; (a) organizational constructs (Jay, 2013;Schilke & Cook, 2013), bteaming constructs (Ebrahim, 2015;Murase et al, 2014), (c) leadership characteristics (Wadsworth & Blanchard, 2015), (d) follower perspectives (Uhl-bien et al, 2014;Qu, Janssen, & Shi, 2015), and (e) scientific collaboration environments (Su, 2014;Walsh & Huang, 2014).…”

Concurrent Engineering in SMEs: An Application in the Automotive Supplier Segment

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Dynamic Virtual Teams in Project Management

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