Antecedents of knowledge-seeking intentions and efforts within new product development teams: empirical evidence from knowledge-based Chinese companies

This study aims to examine the antecedents of knowledge-seeking intentions (SIs) and efforts within new product development (NPD) teams.

Data was collected from 331 employees affiliated with 29 NPD teams across 18 Chinese firms in five high-tech and knowledge-based industries via an online assessment and a survey. Hierarchical linear modelling was used to test the hypotheses using HLM and Mplus software.

The results of this study show that intrinsic task motivation (IM) and personal task experience (TE) positively relate to SIs, whereas leadership support (LS) and shared culture (SC) negatively relate to knowledge-seeking efforts (SEs). SIs partially mediate the relationship between IM and SEs, while they fully mediate the relationship between TE and SEs. Additionally, customer orientation (CO) positively moderates the relationship between SIs and SEs.

Data collection was completed online by relying on an existing version of the Abedi Creativity Test. The samples involve 18 companies in a High-Tech Development Zone in China, which indicates limited generalizability.

Effective NPD depends on successful marketing–R&D integration and knowledge exchange within the NPD team. Besides, organizations need to find ways to stimulate NPD team members’ IM and also through various ways to inspire more efforts from team members under the condition of supportive leadership and culture.

This study contributes to the knowledge management and marketing literature on NPD teamwork by examining knowledge-seeking phenomena from the perspective of the internal knowledge market and contributes to knowledge-seeking research by revealing the antecedents of SIs and SEs at both the individual and organizational level.