Abstract New Product Development (NPD) processes commonly involve distributed teams. The more dispersed team members are, the less frequently and easily they will communicate, and the more challenging it will be to form a cohesive team. One solution is to reduce task interdependence and adopt a mechanistic coordination mechanism, which reduces the need for team communication, has a hierarchical structure and relies on process formalization. An alternative solution is to increase task interdependence and rely on an organic coordination mechanism, which is participative and communicative, in order to stimulate team interfaces and favor team integration. These two solutions employ diametrically opposed coordination strategies and highlight tensions arising from team distribution, task interdependence and coordination mechanisms in NPD. In this paper, we examine these tensions in depth and explore the influence of coordination mechanisms and task interdependence on NPD team integration according to their level of distance. We adopt a contingency approach to coordination strategy in order to answer the following questions: what coordination strategy is better adapted to team distribution? What coordination strategy most favors NPD team integration at distance? By applying structural equation modeling to data from 88 questionnaires completed by NPD project teams we find evidence that the coordination strategy of distributed teams in NPD is contingent on the degree of team distribution. The results are relevant to the study of coordinating innovation in distributed organizations, and have implications for the practice or R&D and NPD management.

中文翻译：

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分布式新产品开发 (NPD) 团队中的有机与机械协调

摘要 新产品开发 (NPD) 流程通常涉及分布式团队。团队成员越分散，他们沟通的频率和难度就越低，组建一个有凝聚力的团队就越困难。一种解决方案是减少任务的相互依赖，采用机械协调机制，减少团队沟通的需要，具有层次结构并依赖流程形式化。另一种解决方案是增加任务的相互依存性，并依靠参与性和交流性的有机协调机制，以激发团队互动并促进团队整合。这两种解决方案采用截然相反的协调策略，并突出了 NPD 中团队分布、任务相互依赖和协调机制引起的紧张局势。在本文中，我们深入研究了这些紧张关系，并根据他们的距离水平探索了协调机制和任务相互依赖对 NPD 团队整合的影响。我们采用应变策略来回答以下问题：什么样的协调策略更适合团队分布？什么协调策略最有利于 NPD 团队远距离整合？通过对 NPD 项目团队完成的 88 份问卷数据应用结构方程模型，我们发现有证据表明 NPD 中分布式团队的协调策略取决于团队分布的程度。研究结果与分布式组织中协调创新的研究相关，并对实践或研发和 NPD 管理具有影响。