Premium
Factors influencing knowledge transfer between NPD teams: a taxonomic analysis based on a sociotechnical approach
Author(s) -
Frank Alejandro Germán,
Ribeiro José Luis Duarte,
Echeveste Márcia Elisa
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
randd management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.253
H-Index - 102
eISSN - 1467-9310
pISSN - 0033-6807
DOI - 10.1111/radm.12046
Subject(s) - sociotechnical system , knowledge management , taxonomy (biology) , computer science , new product development , process management , knowledge transfer , process (computing) , management science , business , engineering , marketing , botany , biology , operating system
This paper sets out a taxonomy of the main factors influencing knowledge transfer ( KT ) between new product development ( NPD ) teams, based upon a sociotechnical approach whose framework consists of personnel, technological, work design, and external environment subsystems. The taxonomy was constructed from a literature survey combined with: (1) interviews and focus groups conducted with NPD experts and (2) a principal component analysis applied to a survey of 82 companies. Such steps were necessary because of the large amount of data collected from the literature review. They combine extensive explanatory descriptions from qualitative analysis together with strong confirmatory results given by multivariate quantitative analysis. The final set of 16 main factors summarized more than 100 elements of the NPD environment that influence KT between NPD teams. The key contributions of the proposed taxonomy are: (1) It is the first proposal of an organized understanding about KT influence factors based on a systemic and sociotechnical perspective; (2) New variables emerge from such analysis; and (3) It helps to understand better the elements needed for KT management in the NPD process.