Project Factors Influencing Conflict Intensity and Handling Styles in Collaborative NPD

Conflict and conflict management are critical research issues in client-supplier collaborative new product development (NPD). A recent study found that conflict intensity and conflict-handling styles affect collaborative NPD performance. In this paper, we explore the relationships of four NPD project factors, namely product technical complexity, product certainty, task interdependence and the relative power of supplier, to conflict intensity and suppliers' adoption of integrating and dominating conflict-handling styles. Research findings based on survey data collected from 193 suppliers provide a clear insight into the conflict intensity and suppliers' adoption of conflict-handling styles for NPD projects of various characteristics, which enables better planning for conflict management and helps improve NPD performance