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Project Team Communication and Cross‐Functional Cooperation in New Program Development
Author(s) -
Pinto Mary Beth,
Pinto Jeffrey K.
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
journal of product innovation management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.646
H-Index - 144
eISSN - 1540-5885
pISSN - 0737-6782
DOI - 10.1111/1540-5885.730200
Subject(s) - business , project management , project team , knowledge management , psychology , management , computer science , economics
The importance of communication for the successful development of new projects, particularly within the R&D laboratory setting, has been well documented. Yet researchers have seldom examined the relationship between patterns of communication and cross‐functional cooperation in the development and management of new programs. In this article Mary Beth and Jeffrey Pinto report on the results of a research study that assessed the relationship of two aspects of project team communication (formal versus informal modes and reason for communication) with the level of cross‐functional cooperation actually achieved within a hospital project team charged with developing a new program. A total of 262 team members were surveyed from 72 hospital project teams. The results demonstrated that high cooperation teams differed from low cooperation teams both in terms of their increased use of informal methods for communication as well as their reasons for communicating. Finally, cross‐functional cooperation was found to be a strong predictor of certain project outcomes.