The effect of internal market orientation, internal dynamics and knowledge management strategies on NSD project performance

Recognizing that service firms' performance is driven from their capability to innovate, new service development (NSD) is an increasingly important area of interest, as it can provide service organizations with a sustainable competitive advantage and ensure their long-term prosperity. The main objective of this thesis is to deliver an integrated framework for the strategic management of NSD by acknowledging how various internal conditions affect NSD project performance. The focus of this dissertation rests on the contingent effect of project manager's behaviour, interfunctional relationships and team-level contingencies on different new service development outcomes. In particular, the role of project manager's Internal Market Orientation, interfunctional relationships (i.e. trust, conflict, interfunctional integration and political activity), team-level conditions (i.e. climate, task and relationship conflict) and knowledge management strategies (i.e. personalization and codification strategy) for project learning, organizational learning, resource allocation effectiveness and efficiency and project performance during NSD is evaluated. To investigate these relationships, a hierarchical research design is adopted by drawing nested data from both two different sources (i.e. project managers and participants of NSD projects) across several service industries. A final usable sample of 116 project managers and 543 responses from NSD participants was obtained. Results highlight the importance of project manager's Internal Market Orientation adoption for NSD project performance while the role of interfunctional relationships, team-level contingencies, individual perceptions and knowledge management strategies during also proves critical for NSD. This dissertation is anticipated to provide service managers with several useful insights regarding ways of improving the management and the organization of the NSD process as well as to shed light on the reeffectiveness different knowledge management strategies for project performance, project learning and resource allocation during NSD. The identification of how intra-organizational dynamics and contextual factors concurrently influence performance, learning and resource allocation during service innovation efforts will optimize their daily management and help practitioners understand the impact of their actions on team dynamics and innovation performance.