Managing conflict in collaborative new product development: a supplier perspective

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the distribution of conflict over various NPD phases and identify the main sources of conflict and the five conflict handling styles in new product development (NPD) from the context of buyer‐supplier collaboration. Design/methodology/approach – A list of the sources of conflict was developed and five conflict handling styles in NPD were identified based on literature review and the opinions of manufacturing experts in Hong Kong. An empirical study comprising a series of personal interviews and a mailed survey was conducted to acquire empirical findings from industry practitioners and suppliers on the conflict issues in collaborative NPD. The relationships between NPD performance and conflict intensity as well as conflict handling styles were analysed. Both reliability and construct validity of the study construct were measured. Findings – The study identified 16 sources of conflict and demonstrated that conflict has a significant negative relationship with NPD performance in terms of product quality, and meeting of target development costs and delivery schedule. The results also showed that cooperative styles (i.e. integrating and obliging) are effective and uncooperative styles (i.e. dominating and avoiding) are ineffective, whereas compromising is a neutral approach. Research limitations/implications – This research was based on four industry sectors including electronics, toys, machinery, and watches and clocks in Hong Kong. Generalisability to other industries or countries may be limited. Practical implications – The findings verified that a negative relationship exists between conflict intensity and NPD performance. Both the clients and suppliers should maintain a sustainable level of conflict and should enhance their conflict handling efforts and skills for effective conflict resolutions. Originality/value – From a suppliers' viewpoint, this paper provides some insights into how client‐supplier collaboration and conflict resolutions could improve NPD performance.