COLLABORATIVE BEHAVIOUR OF SOFTWARE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT TEAMS VARYING ON PRODUCT NEWNESS AS A SURROGATE MEASURE FOR INNOVATION

Product development (PD) has traditionally been a collaborative effort with the PD team having to interact with various entities within and outside its boundary. Depending on the context and the kind of product being developed, teams typically interact with other teams, vendors, academic institutions and end users. This paper analyses the collaborative boundary crossing behaviour of software PD teams and the role of newness of product developed. The boundaries have been classified as horizontal, geographical and value-chain. Measurement was done with the help of two sets of questionnaires, one, to map the entities in the environment of the PD team and newness of the product developed, and the other, to measure collaborative boundary crossing behaviours of the team. The study showed that teams had low level of collaboration and the boundaries influenced collaboration behaviour. The newness of the product was also found to influence collaboration.