ABSTRACT
The development of new products and services through cooperative work involves the need for exploring and exploiting knowledge from diverse fields of expertise that is difficult for a single firm to achieve, but can be accomplished through inter-organizational new product development (NPD) teams. There is a limited understanding of the dynamics of inter-organizational NPD teams whose cooperation is essentially based on and directed by their members’ expertise. From some observations the authors formulate a conceptual model intended to describe the dynamics of inter-organizational, knowledge-based teams. This model informs theory with respect to development of a communicative theory of the firm. One option for firms is to engage in inter-organizational NPD projects. Throughout the team’s cooperation, decisions about formation, distribution and assignment of tasks, as well as their subject matters and sequence have to be taken by the NPD team.
