Boosting the confidence of new product development teams: the role of team boundary spanning, team size and functional diversity

Abstract

In today's highly interconnected, uncertain and dynamic business environment, teamboundary spanning has become an important determinant of the performance ofnew product development (NPD) projects. Despite the positive evidence supportingthe use of boundary spanning activities by NPD teams, little is still known about howboundary spanning teams become high-performance teams. The current studyadvances research on this subject by examining the mediating effect of team potencyon the relationship between team boundary spanning and new product performance,as well as the moderating effects of team size and functional diversity on the rela-tionship between team boundary spanning and team potency. Data from a time-lagged survey study of 140 NPD projects found that team boundary spanning canpromote team potency that, in turn, results in greater new product quality and newproduct creativity. The positive effect of team boundary spanning on team potencywas found to be more pronounced for NPD teams of medium size and high levels offunctional diversity.