Information Sharing in a New Product Development Project - The Role of Core Actors

The success of NPD projects of high-cost, engineering-intensive, and custom-ized development products is largely dependent on information sharing with actors from customers regarding their specific requirements (Von Hippel, 1986). But information sharing is also necessary among actors from different departments within the organisation (Song and Swink, 2009) regarding such topics as available technical options. Project managers (PMs) are at the heart of this process and plays an essential role in orchestrating the information sharing among various intra-organisational actors (e.g. among actors within the NPD organisation) and inter-organisational actors (across organisational borders, among actors for example from a department within the NPD organisation and a supplier) (Clark and Fujimoto, 1991). Consequently, the PM ensures that varied expertise and critical information are integrated in a timely fashion into the development process (Edmondson and Nembhard, 2009). However, prior research has not simultaneously studied and addressed the differences in intra- and inter-organisational information sharing during the various phases of the NPD project (Kivimaki and Lansisalmi, 2000). Furthermore, relative to intra- or inter-organisational information sharing, comparatively less research has been conducted to investigate the role of the project manager (PM) in orchestrating the information sharing among various intra- and inter-organisational actors (Clark and Fujimoto, 1991). Research has shown that heavily burdened PMs require assistance in the information sharing process not only from project team members (Sarin & O'connor, 2009) but also from other intra-organisational actors e.g. from a specific department within the NPD organisation (Clark & Fujimoto, 1991). However, research on so-called core intra- organisational actors’ relationships with whom the PM establishes relationships with during the NPD phases remains quite limited, and to my knowledge, no other research has studied the role of the inter-organisational actors from this perspective. Therefore, aim of this paper is to provide additional theoretical insights into how the PM through relationships with core actors orchestrates information sharing among other intra- or inter-organisational actors during the progression of an NPD project. In other words, this study emphasises the importance of the PM’s relationships on a day-to-day basis in information sharing among intra- and inter-organisational actors during the phases of an NPD project. This study is an analysis of longitudinal objective email data, and is based on the email exchange (consisting of 4658 emails) to and from intra-organisational actors during the progression of a large NPD project lasting more than two years. The email data were analysed using UCINET software (Borgatti et al., 2002). Normally, such data regarding development projects are quite difficult to access because such projects extend over long periods of time and involve highly complex and sensitive information. Thus, by building on email data that represent the activities that have actually occurred, this paper contributes to the existing literature by exploring the day-to-day practices of both the PM and other core actors during a NPD project. The main conclusion of the study is that the information sharing process during an NPD project is a complex, dynamic process, involving a large number of actors (in this case 373 actors) of diverse functions from different organisations. The results reveal changes in both the structure and intensity of information sharing with intra- and inter-organisational actors. Significant changes in the structure of simultaneous intra-and inter-organisational information sharing are detected when comparing the two early NPD phases with the two later phases. The intensity in information sharing is found to increase during the last two NPD phases. Further, the findings show that to orchestrate the information sharing during the NPD project, the PM relies on relationships with several core intra-organisational actors who are particularly important to the orchestrating of information sharing during the early phases of the NPD project. Unexpectedly, the study found that the PM also receives assistance from core inter-organisational actors from the customer company when orchestrating the intra- and inter-organisational information sharing, especially during the later phases of the NPD project. The findings contribute to the understanding of the different types of relationships by which the PM orchestrates information sharing among actors within and outside of the organisation on a day-to-day basis. The findings indicate that support from both intra- and inter-organisational core actors is crucial to NPD project managers. Additionally, the results regarding the importance of various core actors across the life cycle of the NPD project can be used to identify relationship requirements when planning stakeholder management activities across the phases of a project.