Cross-Functional New Product Development Teams

What it measures

Measures the extent to which an NPD project is structured around formally constituted, cross-functional teams in which personnel are drawn from multiple functional areas and are assigned joint budget and accountability for new product development outcomes. Such teams foster rapid dissemination of customer feedback information across functions and the synergistic coordination required for the customer knowledge development process to be emergent and responsive. One item is reverse-coded, measuring whether budgets and responsibilities are allocated solely to functional areas rather than to cross-functional teams. Items are administered with respect to a specific recent NPD project.

Response format

5-point Likert scale

Scale items

• This project comprised individuals drawn from a number of different functional areas.
• In our organization, functional areas are viewed as resource pools from which to draw personnel for cross-functional teams.
• This project team was given a budget and had specific responsibilities in terms of new product development.
• In our organization, budgets and responsibilities are allocated only to functional areas. (R)

Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.

Usage notes & scoring

Construct reliability = .86. Item loadings: .87, .83, .85, .86 (all t > 14, p < .01). Direct positive effect on customer knowledge development (β = .27, p < .01), further amplified when integration mode of conflict resolution was high (interaction β = .46, p < .01). Cross-functional teams also retained a residual direct effect on new product performance (β = .16, p < .05) after controlling for customer knowledge development, indicating partial mediation. Item 4 is reverse-coded.

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Citation

Joshi, A. W., & Sharma, S. (2004). Customer knowledge development: Antecedents and impact on new product performance. Journal of Marketing, 68(4), 47–59.

Keywords