به اشتراک گذاری دانش و تناسب استراتژیک در پروژه های توسعه یکپارچه محصول : یک مطالعه تجربی

While product strategy has been approached from a variety of perspectives, the role of strategic fit as a critical linkage of knowledge sharing practices and new product development outcomes have not been adequately explored. This paper discusses how strategic fit is instrumental for cross-functional teams to integrate product development outcomes. This paper identifies critical knowledge sharing components that enhances the extent of strategic fit that in turn improves the success of product development efforts. Strategic fit or alignment requires knowledge sharing practices of the product development team. Teams with a shared knowledge base are more capable of thinking strategically, adapting their actions to their project environment and accordingly engaging in innovative problem-solving while ultimately achieving project goals of time, cost and value. This paper presents and tests a research model using a sample of 285 product development projects of firms from USA, Canada and Spain. The results suggest that strategic fit is associated with greater knowledge sharing and enhance product development outcomes in both small and large firms as well as diverse regions (i.e., USA, Canada and Spain).

While product strategy has been approached from a variety of perspectives, the role of strategic fit as a critical linkage of knowledge sharing practices and new product development outcomes have been mostly in the program level but not necessarily in the project level (Zajac et al., 2000, Hughes and Morgan, 2008 and Carmeli et al., 2010). Strategic fit is a critical linkage that connects the productivity of projects and its ultimate outcomes (Smith and Reece, 1999, Murray and Kotabe, 2005 and Katsikeas et al., 2006). For projects that involve value creation and delivery through innovative problem solving requires knowledge sharing practices of the product development team (Fernie et al., 2003, Fedor et al., 2003 and Hong et al., 2005). The resource-based view (RBV) of the firm assumes that firms can be conceptualized as bundles of valuable, rare, inimitable and non-substitutable resources through which they achieve sustainable competitive advantages (Wernerflet, 1984, Prahalad and Hamel, 1990, Barney, 1991 and Teece et al., 1997). Increasingly, RBV is extended to dynamic markets, where the utilization of knowledge resources is especially regarded as critical strategic resources of firms (Grant, 1996, Kogut and Zander, 1992, Rauniar et al., 2008a and Adenfelt, 2010). Firms with superior resources (e.g., knowledge resources and absorptive capacity) may have better chances of sustaining their competitive advantages. A few papers suggest empirical grounding particularly on the strategic process mechanisms by which knowledge resources are utilized for competitive advantages in dynamic markets (Williamson, 1999, Priem and Butler, 2001 and Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000). However, it is still not so clear how firms translate their knowledge resources in the project level to design, develop and deliver products that allow their product advantages. Key interface issues in engineering and management are to examine how organizational practices impact business performance. Thus, empirical studies have examined the relationship between: design quality and performance (Fynes and De Búrca, 2005), manufacturing strategy gap and business performance (Rho et al., 2001), manufacturing systems, strategic change and performance (Lloréns et al., 2005), innovation, quality management and performance (Sadikoglu and Zehir, 2010), product modularity and performance (Lau Antonio et al., 2007), shared knowledge and product design glitches (Rauniar et al., 2008b), lean manufacturing and business performance (Yang et al., 2011), and supply chain flexibility and firm performance (Merschmann and Thonemann, 2011). Strategy literature adequately discusses the role of strategic fit in organizational level (Zajac et al., 2000, Kim and Finkelstein, 2009, Yin and Zajac, 2004, Murray and Kotabe, 2005 and Naesens et al., 2009). However, in what context (i.e., antecedents and drivers) and to what extent (i.e., outcome effects) strategic fit operates in project level is unclear. Nothing in the prior literature on product development focuses so carefully with a large sample study on strategic fit at the project level. No other study supports the mediating or partially mediating role of project strategic fit with such a large and multi-country sample. In view of this critical research gap, this paper explores the following specific research questions: (1) how critical is strategic fit in the integrated product development projects?; (2) what are the essential knowledge components that enhance the strategic fit which in turn improve the success of product development efforts? and (3) what are the key performance outcomes that measure the effectiveness of strategic fit? Cross-functional teams need to utilize an adequate shared knowledge base by thinking strategically, adapting their actions to their project environment and thus engaging innovative problem-solving while achieving integrative project goals in terms of time, cost and value. Thus, this study is to highlight the critical linkage and coordinating mechanism of strategic fit in the increasing knowledge intensive, innovative project management. This paper provides a unique and rich research context. Previous research by Hong et al. (2004b) has discussed the impact of shared knowledge of customers on clarity of project goals, knowledge sharing on process performance (Hong et al., 2004a), role changes of design engineers (Hong et al., 2005) and manufacturability (Doll et al., 2010) upon product development outcomes. This paper is different from these previous papers in that: (1) we examine a comprehensive set of shared knowledge, which includes shared knowledge of customers, suppliers, competitors and internal capabilities; (2) we present a research model that explains how firms within dynamic markets utilize knowledge resources through strategic fit as an important value-creating project linkage mechanism; (3) we also explore how these knowledge capabilities, via strategic fit, impact performance outcomes of new product development (i.e., time-to-market, value-to-customers and manufacturing cost) and (4) the data base includes USA, Canada and European data (n=285) in contrast to all the previous papers (n=205) which is based on the data collected only from firms of USA/Canada ( Hong et al., 2004a, Hong et al., 2004b, Hong et al., 2005 and Doll et al., 2010). This paper is organized as follows. The next section discusses a conceptual framework that provides a theoretical perspective of strategic fit for effective project management, particularly in the knowledge intensive innovative environment. Then, this paper presents a research model that defines the different aspects of shared knowledge components that enhance the extent of strategic fit. The value of strategic fit is articulated in the critical project outcomes in terms of customer values, time to market and cost effectiveness (i.e., create and deliver highly valued products in a short time at low costs). Research methods are described and the research results based on 285 projects from USA, Canada and Spain are presented in details. Theoretical and managerial implications of this study are discussed along with the future research issues.

The interpretations of the exploratory results should be handled with a due care. The data are based on a single-method (survey) and a single-informant from each firm, which may result in common method variance and informant bias. The responses are perceptual in nature. This subjectivity for performance data is serious if respondents from different cultural contexts may be unwilling to admit poor performance. Careful follow-up interviews on the selective respondents from USA, Canada and Spain do not suggest such bias. In spite of these inherent limitations of survey methods, this study provides valuable insights on how resources of shared knowledge among project team members improve strategic fit and project performance. First, shared knowledge is created in the team by a process of enactment. To enact is to establish by authoritative action. This means that the cross-functional team needs to nurture a sense of autonomy and empowerment. The team processes should enable to process divergent information about customers, competitor’s offerings, internal capabilities and suppliers’ capabilities and establish a shared understanding for collaborative action. This suggests that the cross-functional team needs some degree of autonomy and independence from top management. It also suggests that team building processes in fuzzy front end should focus on sharing knowledge, integrating perspectives and evolving their common knowledge base. Second, in contrast to the view that strategy and strategic fit is top down phenomenon dictated by top management, this study suggests that shared knowledge of customers, competitive offerings, internal and supplier design and manufacturing capabilities among the cross-functional team members working on the project are essential to the actual execution or realization of strategic fit for a particular project. Project goals set by top management for a project may still be met, but how these goals are achieved in the context of a project’s dynamic environment and resources available for the project may require some adaptation by the product development teams. A shared knowledge base enables the project team to adapt to emerging problems and opportunities while still keeping the focus on the larger organizational goals and specifically move the project towards the desirable the project outcomes in terms of time, cost and quality. Thus, the shared knowledge base helps keep the project on target while maintaining strategic alignment in a changing context. Third, strategic fit or alignment is something that needs to be maintained by a cross-functional project team throughout the life of the project. Strategic fit is an important value-creating project linkage mechanism. It is not just an initial concept in the early product concept development stage. Rather, it is an understanding on how project environment forces and internal capabilities need to continue to be recrafted to maintain alignment in a dynamic development process. Teams with a shared knowledge base are more capable of thinking strategically, adapting their actions to their project environment and accordingly engaging innovative problem-solving while ultimately achieving project goals of time, cost and value. Fourth, increasingly, cross-functional teams need to manage innovative projects that deliver customer values, in short time frame and cost constraints. The results of this paper suggest that teams with a shared knowledge base are more capable of thinking strategically, adapting their actions to their project environment and accordingly engaging in innovative problem-solving while ultimately achieving project goals of time, cost and value. This paper presents and tests a research model using a sample of 285 actual product development projects of firms from USA, Canada and Spain. Replication studies are needed to advance engineering and operations management (OM) research. In fact, several recent papers have called for more studies of this type (Singh, 2003 and Frohlich and Dixon, 2006). Importantly, Roth et al. (2008) found that relatively few of the published multi-item measurement scales had sufficient reliability and validity. More cross-cultural, empirical research with relatively large samples (instead of anecdotal evidence or relatively small samples) is called for rigorous examination and theory building (Rosenzweig et al., 2011). By using multi-country data set and multi-items with high level of reliability and validity, this article thereby examines contextual differences (e.g., regional difference and firm size) on performance. The empirical results suggest that strategic fit is associated with greater knowledge sharing and enhance product development outcomes in both small and large firms as well as diverse regions (i.e., USA, Canada and Spain). This empirical study has highlighted the critical linkage value in the increasingly knowledge intensive, innovative project management. Thus, the results of study further clarify additional research needs in innovative project management. First, it is worthy to examine the complex process dimensions of determining strategic fit in relation to other variables (e.g., project environments, fuzzy front end planning practices, leadership styles and team characteristics). Second, in view of expanding project scopes of global cross-functional teams the use of socio-technological mechanisms for the effective knowledge sharing and value creation and delivery mechanisms may further be examined. Future studies may also explore how strategic fit as a dynamic value creation linkage mechanisms for managing both routine projects and radical innovations in different industries and diverse cultural settings.