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Abstract
Substantial research has explored the influence of organizational structure on new product development (NPD) during the planning phase, but it has rarely been considered in the execution phase through cross-functional integration. This study aims to investigate the mediating effect of cross-functional integration between organizational structure and the NPD process. The study used a survey instrument to collect cross-sectional data of 247 participants from the telecommunications industry of Pakistan. We employed correlation and regression analyses to investigate interrelationships among the variables and test the research hypotheses. The findings indicate that the organic structure of the organization has a positive impact on the NPD process during the execution phase, and cross functional integration mediates between the relationships to improve the effectiveness of organizations. Moreover, cross-functional integration partially mediates between mechanistic structure and the NPD process.
Keywords: Cross-functional integration, organic structure, mechanistic structure, new product development, telecommunication, Pakistan.
Innovation supports economic development through industrial companies gaining access to technological developments and the resulting improvements in productivity and competitiveness (Shane, 2001). Indeed, the innovation literature can be categorized according to two broad fields of study (Brown & Einsenhardt, 1995). The first field considers the variability in innovation models between different aspects, including the industrial sectors of countries, technological progression over time, differences within an industrial sector, as well as the degree of innovation of companies (i.e., economic tradition). The second field considers the organization-focused tradition through emphasizing micro-level development of new products. Over the years, these developments that are related to innovation have become increasingly fast-paced with the advent of new technologies as well as globalization, and this has resulted in the need for new business models and organizational structures to be developed for industrial enterprises to remain competitive (Daim, 2017).
As companies strive for such competiveness, there is a requirement to develop new products and services that utilize the latest technological advances. Various researchers have investigated the impact of organizational structure as well as different organizational conditions on the new product development (NPD) process (Im & Workman, 2004; Jeong et al., 2006). Launching a new product in the market is essential since new products have become the core of competitiveness for many industrial companies (Clark et al., 1987). This is the case from software to automotive...