رویکرد و شرایط تأمین نیروی انسانی برای یادگیری جمعی در تیم های پروژه : در مورد پروژه های توسعه محصول جدید

In the contemporary competitive environment, it becomes crucial for companies to master, promote and keep the collective learning developed during new products development projects. This research discusses the extent to which the approach of staffing the new products development projects’ teams and the logic of career development of project managers have an influence on the collective learning conditions during these projects. After having pointed out the main dimensions of learning in new product development projects and the main dimensions of the logic of project managers’ career development, the empirical data analysis of this research demonstrates that job rotation in projects for functional staff, as an approach of staffing the projects’ teams, makes up favourable conditions for collective learning during the projects.

The evolution of the competitive environment has highlighted the ability of companies to develop new products both quickly and under good economic conditions – products which not only seek to satisfy the needs of clients but also bring them increased value – as a key factor of competitiveness [1]. In this new business context, fast and cost-effective product development has become a crucial organizational capability for a company’s performance and survival [2]. In addition, the evolution of the competitive environment explains the necessity of the firms to implement quick and efficient organizational learning and why they show greater interest in the theme of organizational learning [3] and [4]. In a context where the changing environment results in accelerated development and where the launch of new products is an important competitive issue, it becomes crucial to master, promote and keep the knowledge learnt through R&D projects [5]. If new product development projects have been extensively identified as learning tools for the companies, little attention has been paid to the influence of team composition on organizational learning in this particular context. This research examines the extent to which the approach of staffing the teams of new product development projects and the career development of the project managers has an influence on the organizational learning conditions during these projects. Firstly, it is demonstrated that, under certain conditions, new product development projects constitute privileged organizational spaces for collective learning and that the management of attention is playing a paramount role in these learning processes. Secondly, the methodology used in this research is outlined. Finally, the results of the data analysis are presented and discussed in the last section of this paper. They demonstrate the critical link between what is called in this research ‘orthogonality’ (staffing approach of projects guaranteeing the rotation of functional actors in the projects and the alternation of the duties carried out by the project managers) and the favourable character of the conditions for organizational learning during the projects.

This research demonstrates that the companies privileging the rotation of the functional personnel as project team staffing approach and the alternation of duties held by the project managers are better able to develop collective learning during these projects than the others. The empirical study necessitated the development of both an identification tool of the staffing approach and the career development logic implemented by the companies and a measurement instrument of the collective learning during the new product development projects. The measure by default of collective learning, through the more or less favourable conditions for learning during the projects, may constitute the main limit of this research. Moreover, this research embracing organizational learning issues, project management aspects and HRM perspectives raises certain questions such as the issue of the transfer and memorization of learning carried out during the projects. Beyond the question of the valuation of the functional actors’ participation in the various projects led by the firm, the more general question of career development of the personnel arises. This question is posed with all the more acuity for the actors having held significant responsibilities during the project, sometimes leading them to call into question the responsibility and authority areas of the functional departments through the strong choices they have had to make for the project. In these conditions, it appears sometimes difficult to advise their returns to the functional departments. But these actors are also effective vectors for the transfer of the knowledge developed during the projects. The company must make sure that this transfer is effective if it wants to ensure that the learning does not remain a simple local knowledge tacitly embodied by some individuals and so to profit from their contributions. Indeed, these ideas can carry a significant impact on the organization only when they are largely diffused rather than held by a limited number of individuals [10]. Finally, this approach of staffing new product development projects teams, implying the rotation of functional actors in the various projects led by the firm, can also be seen as a way for the company to learn about its employees and its activities [55]. This relation between the factors leading to the implementation of job rotation in the company, on the one hand, and the projects staffing approach adopted, in the other hand, would constitute an avenue for future research.