| Previous research applying the information processing model on new product development (NPD) focused mainly on how to facilitate cross-functional communication. The underlying assumption is that an increase in the amount of cross-functional communication will improve NPD performance. These studies, however, failed to address the dynamic changes of NPD knowledge in the course of NPD process.;By measuring NPD knowledge with different groups (including marketing personnel, customers, R&D personnel inside and outside of the firm, manufacturing personnel and suppliers) across stages, this study is able to capture the dynamic nature of NPD knowledge and its impacts on R&D cross-functional communication. In addition, the effectiveness of R&D cross-functional communication is also investigated by measuring its contribution in the improvement of NPD knowledge. The data was collected via a questionnaire from 98 new product projects.;The data indicated that the higher the NPD knowledge that R&D personnel possessed in the previous stage, the greater the amount of the R&D cross-functional communication is likely to occur in the current stage. In another word, the result suggested that a lack of NPD knowledge would not necessarily trigger R&D cross-functional communication. Besides, the impacts of R&D cross-functional communication were not found to be consistently beneficial to NPD knowledge. In certain stages, the communication between R&D personnel and other functional groups does not significantly improve NPD knowledge. Future research should include the quality of R&D cross-functional communication to better understand the accumulation of knowledge and the learning process of a NPD team. |
