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Tuesday 19 May 2015

AMiner - Open Science Platform

Critical Factors for New Product Developments in SMEs Virtual Team

African Journal of Business Management Vol. 4(11), pp. 2247-2257, 4 September, 2010
Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are considered as an
engine for economic growth all over the world and especially for
developing countries. During the past decade, new product development
(NPD) has increasingly been recognized as a critical factor in ensuring
the continued survival of SMEs. On the other hand, the rapid rate of
market and technological changes has accelerated in the past decade, so
this turbulent environment requires new methods and techniques to bring
successful new products to the marketplace. Virtual team can be a
solution to answer the requested demand. However, literature have shown
no significant differences between traditional NPD and virtual NPD in
general, whereas NPD in SME’s virtual team has not been systematically
investigated in developing countries. This paper aims to bridge this gap
by first reviewing the NPD and its relationship with virtuality and
then identifies the critical factors of NPD in virtual teams. The
statistical method was utilized to perform the required analysis of data
from the survey. The results were achieved through factor analysis at
the perspective of NPD in some Malaysian and Iranian manufacturing firms
(N = 191). The 20 new product development factors were grouped into
five higher level constructs. It gives valuable insight and guidelines,
which hopefully will help managers of firms in developing countries to
consider the main factors in NPD.



 

Virtual R&D Teams and SMEs Growth: A Comparative Study between Iranian and Malaysian SMEs

African Journal of Business Management Vol. 4(11), pp. 2368-2379, 4 September, 2010
This paper explores potential advantages of using virtual
teams for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with a comprehensive
review on various aspects of virtual teams. Based on the standing of
the pertinent literature, attempt has been made to study the aspects by
online survey method in Iran and Malaysia. In both countries, SMEs play
an important role in their economies, employments, and capacity
building. Virtual R&D team can be one of the means to increase SMEs
efficiency and competitiveness in their local as well as global markets.
In this context, surveys have been conducted to evaluate the effects of
virtuality to the growth of SMEs. The study addresses some differences
between two countries in engaging virtual research and development
(R&D) teams in their SMEs. It is observed that there is a
significant difference between the SMEs turnover that employed virtual
team and that did not employ the virtual team. The way for further
studies and recommend improvements are proposed.






Work Together… When Apart Challenges and What is Need for Effective Virtual Teams

JOURNAL OF INFORMATION, KNOWLEDGE AND RESEARCH IN BUSINESS MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATION, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 1-3, October 2010 
Increasingly competitive global markets and accelerating
technological changes have increased the need for people to contact via
electronic medium to have daily updates, the people those who could not
able to meet face to face every day. Those who contact via electronic
medium i.e. Virtual Team, are having number of benefit but to achieve
these potential benefits, however, leaders need to overcome liabilities
inherent in the lack of direct contact among team members and managers.
Team members may not naturally know how to interact effectively across
space and time. By this paper author try to throw some lights on the
challenges that virtual team faces and try to elaborate what is needed
for Virtual Team.






SMEs; Virtual research and development (R&D) teams and new product development: A literature review

  International Journal of the Physical Sciences Vol. 5(7), pp. 916–930, July 2010
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are indeed the
engines of global economic growth. Their continued growth is a major
subject for the economy and employment of any country. Towards that end,
virtual research and development (R&D) could be a viable option to
sustain and ease the operations of SMEs. However, literature shows there
has not been a great deal of research into the diverse characteristic
of virtual R&D teams in SMEs. This article provides a comprehensive
literature review on different aspects of virtual R&D teams
collected from the reputed publications. The purpose of the literature
review is to provide an outline on the structure and dynamics of R&D
collaboration in SMEs. Specifying the rationale and relevance of
virtual teams, the relationship between virtual R&D team for SMEs
and new product development (NPD) has been examined. It concludes with
identifying the gaps and feebleness in the existing literature and calls
for future research in this area. It is argued to form of virtual
R&D team deserves consideration at top level management for
venturing into the new product development within SMEs.






Virtual Teams: A Literature Review

Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 2653-2669, 2009
In the competitive market, virtual teams represent a growing
response to the need for fasting time-to-market, low-cost and rapid
solutions to complex organizational problems. Virtual teams enable
organizations to pool the talents and expertise of employees and
non-employees by eliminating time and space barriers. Nowadays,
companies are heavily investing in virtual team to enhance their
performance and competitiveness. Despite virtual teams growing
prevalence, relatively little is known about this new form of team.
Hence the study offers an extensive literature review with definitions
of virtual teams and a structured analysis of the present body of
knowledge of virtual teams. First, we distinguish virtual teams from
conventional teams, different types of virtual teams to identify where
current knowledge applies. Second, we distinguish what is needed for
effective virtual team considering the people, process and technology
point of view and underlying characteristics of virtual teams and
challenges they entail. Finally, we have identified and extended 12 key
factors that need to be considered, and describes a methodology focused
on supporting virtual team working, with a new approach that has not
been specifically addressed in the existing literature and some guide
line for future research extracted.






Innovation and R&D Activities in Virtual Team

European Journal of Scientific Research, Vol. 34, No. 3, pp. 297-307, 2009
Innovation plays a central role in economic development, at
the regional and national level. In the competitive environment
companies are obliged to produce more rapidly, more effectively and more
efficiently in new product development, which is a result of research
and development (R&D) activities. It is necessary for them to put
together different capabilities and services with the goal, through
cooperation between suppliers and customers, service providers and
scientific institutions to achieve innovations of high quality.
Depending on the type of industry, the type of business, the type of
innovation and the strategic objectives that have been set, firms will
regularly have to modify the way in which their R&D and innovation
are organized. Nowadays, shift from serial to simultaneous and parallel
working in innovation has become more commonplace. Literatures have
shown that collaboration is as a meta-capability for innovation. By a
comprehensive reviewing of literature this article after define virtual
teams and its characteristics, addressing virtual environment innovation
and the relationship to R&D activities. Finally conclude that
innovation cannot be successful, unless the knowledge and information in
the R&D project are effectively captured, shared and internalized
by the R&D project’s virtual team members.

 

Virtual Teams for New Product Development: An Innovative Experience for R&D Engineers

European Journal of Educational Studies, Vol. 1, No. 3, pp. 109-123, October 2009
New interaction tools such as internet allow companies to
gain valuable input from research and development (R&D) engineers
via virtual teams. Consequently, engineers also get more expertise in
diminutive time frames. Virtual R&D teams present the key impetus to
the technology acquisition process. The present knowledge-economy era
is characterized by short product life-cycles. Virtual R&D teams may
reduce time-to-market, make available a large pool of new product
know-how and provide greater flexibilities, which are the key success
factors in a competitive market. This comprehensive review contains
almost 100 references and covers the recent literature with emphasis on
the topic. The review has focused on authentic and reputed publications
and extracts the results. This article presents the type of virtual
teams and their main features and explains how virtual R&D team can
play a prominent role in developing new products. The article is evolved
future study guideline and also illustrates how to apply virtual
interaction tools and integrate engineers into the innovation process.
Management of virtual R&D teams in new product development (NPD)
processes in an innovative, effective and efficient is of a high
importance, but the issue has been poorly addressed in the previous
studies. Findings show that virtual R&D team provides valuable input
for new product development and R&D engineers are able to attain
virtual experience.

 

Modified Stage-Gate: A Conceptual Model of Virtual Product Development Process

African Journal of Marketing Management, Vol. 1, No. 9, pp. 211-219, December 2009
In today’s dynamic marketplace, manufacturing companies are
under strong pressure to introduce new products for long-term survival
with their competitors. Nevertheless, every company cannot cope up
progressively or immediately with the market requirements due to
knowledge dynamics being experienced in the competitive milieu.
Increased competition and reduced product life cycles put force upon
companies to develop new products faster. In response to these pressing
needs, there should be some new approach compatible in flexible
circumstances. This paper presents a solution based on the popular
Stage-Gate system, which is closely linked with virtual team approach.
Virtual teams can provide a platform to advance the knowledge-base in a
company and thus to reduce time-to-market. This article introduces
conceptual product development architecture under a virtual team
umbrella. The paper describes all the major aspects of new product
development (NPD), NPD process and its relationship with virtual teams,
Stage-Gate system finally presents a modified Stage-Gate system to cope
up with the changing needs. It also provides the guidelines for the
successful implementation of virtual teams in new product development.

 

Virtual R&D Teams in Small and Medium Enterprises: A Literature Review

Scientific Research and Essays, Vol. 4, No. 13, pp. 1575–1590, December 2009 
Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are the driving engine
behind economic growth. While SMEs play a critical role in generating
employment and supporting trade, they face numerous challenges, the
prominent among them are the need to respond to fasting time-to-market,
low-cost and rapid solutions to complex organizational problems. Towards
that end, research and development (R & D) aspect deserves
particular attention to promote and facilitate the operations of SMEs.
Virtual R & D team could be a viable option. However, literature
shows that virtual R & D teaming in SMEs is still at its infancy.
This article provides a comprehensive literature review on different
aspects of virtual R & D teams collected from the reputed
publications. The purpose of the state-of-the-art literature review is
to provide an overview on the structure and dynamics of R & D
collaboration in SMEs. Specifying the foundation and importance of
virtual teams, the relationship between virtual R & D team and SMEs
has been examined. It concludes with the identification of the gaps in
the existing literatures and calls for future research. It is argued
that setting-up an infrastructure for virtual R & D team in SMEs
still requires a large amount of engineering efforts and deserves
consideration at top level management.


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