THE IMPORTANCE OF INTER-TEMPORAL INTEGRATION IN NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

According to the knowledge-based view (KBV), knowledge is a valuable resource that can lead to a competitive advantage. However, in industries where codified knowledge is used in developing successive iterations of products, codified knowledge has the potential to become obsolete over time and thus can also be an impediment to innovation. Using cycle-time (competitor comparison) as a performance measure, we find that inter-temporal integration — organisational practices designed to transfer tacit knowledge between former and current employees in successive new product development projects (NPDS) — enables a firm to effectively utilize codified knowledge to enhance product development cycle-time performance. Furthermore, using dysfunctional design change frequency as a performance measure, we find that inter-temporal integration has a negative relationship to this variable, but the relationship is stronger when knowledge codification is high. The results provide evidence of an important boundary condition to the benefit of codified knowledge in new product innovation.