Virtuality, communication, and new product team creativity: a social network perspective

Creativity is essential to the performance of new product development (NPD) teams. Since the creative NPD task requires teams to combine and integrate input from multiple NPD team members, the team's communication pattern is an important determinant of NPD team creativity. In the empirical part of this study, we find that team creativity requires a moderate frequency of communication and a low level of communication centralization. Building on these results, in the second part of this paper, we present a three-factor model (member proximity, communication modality, team task structure) that addresses how creativity can be managed through the effective design and management of virtuality in NPD teams. We end with recommendations for further research. (C) 2003 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.