The negative effect of team’s prior experience and technological turbulence on new service development projects with customer involvement

Purpose – The current study examines the negative moderating effects of team’s prior experience and technological turbulence on the antecedents and consequences of using information provided by customers involved in new service development (NSD). It also examines one way to mitigate the proposed negative effects. Design/methodology/approach – The unit of analysis was NSD projects in which customers had been involved during the development process. A self-administered mail survey was used to collect the data. The proposed model was tested using hierarchical path analysis. Findings – Results show that team’s prior experience reduces the extent to which recorded and shared information from customers involved in NSD is used for project-related decisions during the development process. Findings also reveal that technological turbulence can reduce the positive effect of using information provided from customers involved in NSD on new service advantage and service newness. Finally, results show that involving lead users in NSD can help reduce the negative moderating effects of team’s prior experience and technological turbulence. Originality/value – The literature on information use suggests that availability of information does not guarantee its use. In keeping with this argument, the current study reveals that for NSD projects with customer involvement, team’s prior experience and technological turbulence are part of the challenge of making effective use of the new knowledge that customers bring to the development project. Firms are advised to collaborate with lead users as a way to attenuate this problem.