Contextual antecedents and performance of team vision in product development

Purpose – At the heart of realizing superior product development there seems to be the development of organizational mechanisms that fuel team vision. In light of this, the purpose of this paper is to build and empirically test a conceptual model (input‐process‐output) of team vision at the product development level to establish the relationship between the contextual antecedents such as trust and learning culture (inputs), team vision (process) and product development performance in terms of process outcomes (i.e. team effectiveness) and product outcomes (i.e. value to customer). Design/methodology/approach – Evidence is drawn from a sample of 80 Spanish product developments. Data are analyzed through confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis based on composite scores, supported by Lisrel. Findings – Results show that team vision in combination with an organizational context, built upon a learning culture and trust, has a positive impact on product development performance. This influence is higher in terms of process outcomes than in terms of product outcomes. Also, the impact of learning culture on team vision and performance is higher than the impact of trust. Research limitations/implications – The findings open up new research questions about the role of team vision within product development. Research studies taking into account the development of an organizational context that promotes trust‐based relationships and a learning culture would be helpful in order to draw further conclusions. Practical implications – The paper provides managers with convincing evidence of the need to foster team vision in product development. Originality/value – The paper reduces the relative lack of empirical work within existing models about team vision and extends the existing research on team vision to the product development level.