Knowledge Flows in an NPD Team from the Semiconductor Industry

This chapter presents empirical findings from a new product development (NPD) team in the Analog and Mixed Signal (AMS) business unit of a large multinational semiconductor company. More specifically, following Rizova (MIT Sloan Management Review 47(3): 49–55, 2006; Journal of Engineering & Technology Management 21(1/2): 51–82, 2004) we investigated three knowledge intensive interpersonal networks: seeking technical and organizational/managerial advice; discussing new ideas/innovation; as well as discussing the internal and external formal and informal structures underlying the NPD process in France and four additional sites in Italy, Czech, Finland, and India. This case study deals head on with the question of how to foster distributed and network NPD teams through the application of social network analysis for studying at the interpersonal level of analysis, a broad range of knowledge-intensive informal relations fuelling NPD processes in a cross-functional and multisite team. Our results highlight key individual roles, such as central connectors and knowledge brokers (Harvard Business Review 80: 104–112, 2002; California Management Review 49: 32–60, 2006), that team members play in such an NPD team, and identify key individuals in our case study. Moreover, based on in-depth semi-structured interviews with these key individuals we put forward a set of organizational capabilities for strengthening similar NPD teams in the semiconductor or other high-tech industries.

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