Collective Ambition, Creative Chaos, Information Redundancy, and Shared Knowledge in Integrated Product Development – Case Study

The use of cross-functional teams in integrated product development (IPD) has become a common practice in industry. Despite an extant body of literature on the importance of knowledge management in cross-functional team execution, the drivers of knowledge sharing in cross-functional teams in IPD projects have not been adequately addressed. Knowledge sharing among the IPD team members help in complex problem solving and decision-making during the course of the concurrent project environment. In this article we present findings on knowledge sharing in IPD projects from our interviews with project executives from four diverse companies. Based on social cognitive and information processing theories, the current case study proposes a theoretical framework on some of the important determinants of shared knowledge. An understanding of such determinants can help managers in IPD to promote information and knowledge sharing which may lead to superior IPD project performance.