The impact of leader personality on new product development teamwork and performance: The moderating role of uncertainty [An article from: Journal of Engineering and Technology Management]

This digital document is a journal article from Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, published by Elsevier in 2006. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
We examined the affect of leader personality on new product development (NPD) project performance under differing conditions of uncertainty. Our model posits teamwork as a mediating variable between leader personality and NPD performance. We hypothesized that the personality variable of openness would have a stronger influence on teamwork and NPD performance when uncertainty was high, and that the personality variables of extraversion, conscientiousness and stability would have a stronger indirect influence on NPD performance through teamwork when uncertainty was low. We used structural equation modeling to test two models of the influence of personality. In our study of 143 development projects, we support the importance of teamwork as a process variable linking leader personality to NPD performance and confirm that the effects of leader personality on these criteria depend on the level of uncertainty operating in NPD projects, thus substantiating all our hypotheses. Recommendations to re-consider hiring criteria and training for NPD project leaders are provided.