The Effects of Process Orientations on Collaboration Technology Use and Outcomes in Product Development

AbstractNotwithstanding interest in implementing information technologies (ITs) that facilitate collaboration among employees, there has been limited research that examines how such technologies influence collaboration in strategic business processes, such as new product development (NPD), and how this influence is contingent on the nature of the process. We develop and test a model that posits that employees’ collaboration technology use in NPD will influence collaboration outcomes, such as IT-enabled collaboration capability and collaboration satisfaction. The model postulates that NPD involves multiple process orientations—exploration, exploitation, and ambidexterity—and that these orientations have a moderating effect on the relationship between collaboration technology use and outcomes. We conducted two studies in a major pharmaceutical company (N = 1,749 and 1,454, respectively) and found support for our model. We found that the effects of collaboration technology use on outcomes were stronger for e...