کنترل مدیریت، انتظارات نقش و رضایت شغلی تیم های توسعه محصول جدید : اثر مدیریت تصمیم گیری مشارکتی

This work examines the relationships between formal and informal management controls (i.e. output, process and professional) and job satisfaction of new product development (NPD) teams. In particular, the study investigates the direct and indirect effects of management controls on job satisfaction through role expectations (i.e. role conflict and role ambiguity) and the moderating effect of participative-decision making. Results are based on a sample of 197 NPD projects. Our findings indicate that management controls have differential effects on role ambiguity, role conflict and job satisfaction of NPD team. In particular, NPD teams respond more favorable to professional and output controls than to process controls. Relatedly, participative decision making was found to moderate the relationships between output, process, professional controls and role expectations.

Management control in a new product development (NPD) context involves the efforts of managers to influence the behaviors and activities of NPD team members to achieve successful results (Ayers et al., 1997, Bonner et al., 2002 and Poskela and Martinsuo, 2009). Previous research on control of NPD projects has mainly focused on the impact of managerial controls on specific new product performance outcomes such as product quality, project's schedule and budget, and overall project performance (e.g., Bonner et al., 2002, Rijsdijk and van den Enden, 2011 and Tatikonda and Rosenthal, 2000). However, an issue that has received very little research attention so far is how management controls affect job satisfaction of NPD teams. This is an important gap as job satisfaction has been widely recognized as a strong determinant of NPD team effectiveness and performance (Barczak and Wilemon, 2003 and Rodriguez-Escudero et al., 2010). Job satisfaction refers to the team members' satisfaction with regard to the recognition, responsibilities, supervision and opportunities offered during the NPD project (Sarin & Majahan, 2001). Marketing studies have shown ambiguous findings concerning the effect of management control on job satisfaction (see e.g. Jaworski et al., 1993, January, Oliver and Anderson, 1994 and Challagalla and Shervani, 1996, January). Such inconsistent findings have prompted several researchers to examine mediating and moderating variables that influence the relationship between managerial control and job satisfaction (e.g., Challagalla and Shervani, 1996, January and Evans et al., 2007). This study proposes further examination of the linkage between management controls and job satisfaction by investigating the mediating effects of role conflict and role ambiguity and the moderating effect of participative-decision making. The study focuses on two types of formal controls (output control and process control) and one type of informal control, mainly professional control. According to previous research, project team members in NPD are often confronted with unclear and conflicting role expectations as they encounter new and changing customer demands, technical uncertainties, organizational ambiguities and various types of conflicts (Akgün et al., 2006, Barczak and Wilemon, 2003 and Kim and Wilemon, 2001). Findings from recent research indicate that role ambiguity and role conflict have, in turn, a negative impact on job satisfaction and performance of NPD teams (Rodriguez-Escudero et al., 2010). In the current literature, empirical evidence on the mediating effect of role expectations on the management controls-job satisfaction relationship is limited and piecemeal. First, only three studies were found in which these effects were investigated (i.e., Challagalla and Shervani, 1996, January, Jaworski and Kohli, 1991 and Rigopoulou et al., 2012). Second, these studies posit role ambiguity as the key sole mediator of the effects of management control on job satisfaction. Notwithstanding the role of management controls in decreasing role ambiguity, we argue that equally importantly, management controls can ensure that there is a greater agreement between management and team members on role expectations, thereby potentially contributing to lowering role conflict. Finally, with a few exceptions (see Ayers et al., 1997, Cravens et al., 2004 and Jaworski et al., 1993, January), researchers have devoted very little attention to the effect of informal control on role expectations and job satisfaction. This is an important gap since as several studies note managers use formal and informal controls to manage NPD teams (Poskela and Martinsuo, 2009 and Rijsdijk and van den Enden, 2011). The presence of informal controls and the potential for managers to influence them underscore the need for managers to be more aware of their effects on role expectations and job satisfaction (Jaworski et al., 1993). The current research addresses the existing knowledge gaps by exploring the direct and indirect effects of output, process and professional controls on job satisfaction via role ambiguity and role conflict. In recent years, the notion of employee's participation in decision making has gained strength among NPD managers (Cooney, 2004). Existing studies have shown that employees who participate in decision-making have a clearer picture of what is involved in executing the project and exhibit higher level of job satisfaction (Fang, Evans, & Zou, 2005). Against this background, an interesting question becomes how participative decision making interacts with management controls to affect NPD team role expectations and job satisfaction. Research findings concerning the moderating impact of participative decision-making on the effects of management controls have been mixed. In Ramaswami (1996), employees' perceptions of the influence they have on their supervisors regarding their work do not moderate the relationship between output and process controls and employees' dysfunctional behaviors (e.g., concealing and manipulating data). Fang et al. (2005), which examine the moderating effect of goal participation on the relationship between process control and behavior performance using data from both China and United States, indicate that the moderating effect holds in the China sample but not in the US sample. Finally, Atuahene-Gima and Li (2006) show that whereas participative supervision moderates the relationship between process control and employee's trust, it does not moderate the link between output control and employee's trust. The current study adds to the existing literature by examining the moderating impact of participative decision-making on the effects of formal and informal controls on role ambiguity, role conflict and job satisfaction. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the proposed relationships. From a theoretical perspective, the potential contribution of this research lies in identifying multiple ways and contexts in which formal and informal controls can affect job satisfaction of NPD teams, thereby increasing our understanding of the complexity of the relationship between management controls and team job satisfaction. Our research is of potential value for new product managers since it identifies intermediate markers that they should monitor once formal and informal controls are installed in order to ensure that job satisfaction does in fact result. Results also offer useful insights into how participative decision making moderates the effect of management control on role expectations and job satisfaction and thus, provide useful guidance for managers seeking to enhance NPD team design.

Control is an important aspect of the management of the NPD process (Bonner et al., 2002 and Sethi and Iqbal, 2008, January). Although the need for control is rarely disputed, the effect of control systems on NPD team's outcomes remains unsettled. This study offers interesting insights into the effects of output, process and professional controls on role ambiguity, role conflict and job satisfaction of NPD teams, and into the moderating effect of participative decision-making. 6.1. Output control Findings from our study indicate that output control has an important impact on decreasing role ambiguity and role conflict. Output control appears to motivate team members to direct attention to the goal-relevant activities and seek feedback from management, which leads to a more effective transfer of role-related information, and thus to lower role ambiguity (Challagalla & Shervani, 1996). Also, under such a system, team members are given flexibility to achieve results in their own way using their own strategies (Atuahene-Gima & Li, 2006), which reduces the likelihood of role conflict. Lower role ambiguity and role conflict lead to greater satisfaction with their job. Interestingly, contrary to the hypothesis, the use of output control seems to have a positive direct effect on job satisfaction. A plausible explanation for our result could be that whereas output control may potentially increase the level of performance risk and job tension for project team members (Atuahene-Gima & Li, 2006); it also has the benefits of providing team members with a substantial degree of autonomy and independence in how they execute their tasks (Rijsdijk & van den Enden, 2011); which has been positively linked to job satisfaction. For example, Jassawalla and Sashittal (2000) report that NPD teams which enjoy high levels of autonomy are more satisfied with their jobs. It therefore appears that the use of output control can enhance job satisfaction by giving NPD team members a great amount of autonomy and independence to perform their duties. In keeping with our hypotheses, findings from the study suggest that output control is more likely to decrease role ambiguity and role conflict when NPD team members have a strong participation in decision making. 6.2. Process control Although the main effects of process control on role ambiguity and role conflict are not significant, the current study results suggest that the use of process control with active participation by project team members in decision-making can lead to higher role ambiguity and role conflict. Feelings of role conflict and ambiguity are likely to arise insofar as NPD team members perceive that they have to struggle to reconcile the high levels of monitoring and direction associated with process controls with their presumed higher influence over the various aspects of their job. Contrary to expectations, we found a marginal negative relationship between process control and team job satisfaction. It should be noted that the negative effect of process control on job satisfaction of NPD teams is at odds with stipulations made by several researchers (Cravens et al., 1993 and Oliver and Anderson, 1994) that the more a control is behavior based, the more satisfied employees will be. Based on our results, it appears that process control can foster team members' dissatisfaction. Unlike output control, the use of process control imposes strict guidelines on which activities and procedures are to be performed during the development of new products and how they should be performed, limiting team member autonomy. Moreover, under a process-control setting reward decisions are likely to be subject to the personal biases of supervisors, because supervisory evaluations of how team members perform tasks are typically subjective (Anderson & Oliver, 1987). Such perceptions of subjectivity/unfairness in the reward and evaluation process may be difficult to dispel and can have a negative influence on job satisfaction (Sarin & Majahan, 2001). 6.3. Professional control Our results show that professional control has a positive impact in fostering NPD team's job satisfaction directly and indirectly via role ambiguity and role conflict. It is worth noting that the results obtained here indicate that of the three types of control examined, professional control has the strongest total effect on increasing job satisfaction. Moreover, results indicate that professional control is more likely to reduce role ambiguity and role conflict when team's participation in decision-making is low. To the extent that team members participate or have influence on defining the project's goals and objectives, project's deadlines, team's budget, and the format of progress review, team members will feel they have the information necessary to perform their role adequately, and therefore, will rely less on peers for job-related discussions or appraisals of their job. Finally, the findings indicate that participative decision-making does not moderate the relationship between output, process and professional controls and NPD team's job satisfaction. None of the three interaction effects hypothesized for participative decision-making were significant. This may be in keeping with literature suggesting that the key benefit of employee's participation in decision-making is the cognition effect (e.g. participation in decision making gives employees explicit knowledge of where to direct their efforts) not the motivational effect (Latham & Locke, 1991). Rather than serving a socio-emotional role, participation in decision-making appears to serve a task role (Jackson & Schuler, 1985).