Managing communication in global product development teams

Global new product development teams (GNPDTs) are becoming more and more prevalent due to the growing need for companies to compete in a global economy. Managing communication in global NPD teams effectively requires sensitivity to the uniqueness of global NPD, the capabilities of multiple types of communication mechanisms and an understanding of which of these mechanisms best meets a team's need for information. Unfortunately, understanding of these communication mechanisms, their impact and their capabilities is very limited. The research presented in this paper is an exploratory investigation into the management of communication in GNPDTs. The results of the authors' analysis revealed that differences in country culture, country of origin and geographic dispersion had an impact on the need for communicating information quickly (speed), communicating rich information and communicating different volumes of information. They found that these differences affected communication indirectly as a consequence of six factors: (1) the approach used to solve problems; (2) the means used to communicate with leaders; (3) decision-making practices; (4) different languages spoken by team members; (5) the technological capability of the member's country of origin; and (6) extreme geographical dispersion. They also found that only two of the information mechanisms which they studied were associated with performance-the use of phone calls and videoconferencing. Contrary to what might have been expected, videoconferencing was found to be negatively related to performance. The implications of this investigation for researchers and managers are discussed.