The role of trust and project commitment in new product development teams

Although trust has been an important focus of much research in the management literature due to its positive impact on performance, an examination of trust in the new product literature has been noticeably lacking. This study investigates the role of trust in new product development, particularly as it relates to project commitment and performance. Using data from both project leaders and team members from 41 NPD projects, the authors' tests whether trust has a direct or indirect effect on new product performance. The results indicate that project commitment mediates the relationship between trust and market performance but only through project commitment. No relationships are found between trust, commitment and project speed. The results of the study suggest that building trust in NPD project teams is crucial to generating commitment by team members to the project which, in turn, is important to new product performance. However, commitment contributes positively only to market performance and not project speed.