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CROSS-FUNCTIONAL NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT (NPD) TEAMS: CHARACTERISTICS, DYNAMICS AND NPD PERFORMANCE by NORSIAH BINTI MAT Thesis submitted in the fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

The importance of new product development and innovation has grown dramatically over the last few decades, and is now the dominant driver of competition in many industries all over the world including Malaysia. A multitude of factors contribute to an increase feeling of urgency to improve the processes for developing new products. Examples of such factors are increased levels of competition, rapidly changing market requirements, higher rate of technical obsolescence, and shorter product life-cycles. This study examined the relationship between NPD team characteristics, dynamics and the moderating effect of top management support on NPD performance. A total of 521 team members in various industries within the manufacturing companies in Peninsular Malaysia participated in this study by completing the survey questionnaire. This figure comprised of 53 participating companies and 120 teams. The study results found the difference in impact of independent variables on different dependent variables (task-outcomes and psychosocial-outcomes). The R 2 value is higher for psychosocial-outcomes (R 2 =.60) as opposed to task-outcomes (R 2 =.32). Regarding the direct relations between independent variables and dependent variables, only coordination was found to directly relate to both task and psychosocial outcomes. Affective trust has direct relations with psychosocialoutcomes only but not on task-outcomes. Regarding the indirect relations between the independent and the dependent variables when moderating variable was incorporated in the relationships, it was found that top management support