Characteristics of a managerial tool for harnessing the power of the informal organisation to improve product development performance

Considerable resource has been expended in restructuring organisations to optimise product development performance. Researchers and practitioners have concentrated on changing formal organisational structures often to make them more project-focused and have introduced formal processes and procedures for developing new products. The problem of structuring product development, especially in terms of the trade-off between individual project performance and organisational learning, has been identified and individual company specific solutions have appeared. What has not been generated is a wider approach to these problems that allows any company to identify the issues involved and to establish an effective organisation for product development. Through its explicit recognition and exploitation of informal organisational networks, this research fills a gap in the literature and offers a novel perspective on alternate mechanisms to significantly improve product development performance. [Continues.]