NZISDC 2013 1 A Framework to Evaluate the Impact of ICT Usage on Collaborative Product Development Performance C.W.Chathurani Silva, Massey University. c.w.c.silva@massey.ac.nz Supervisors: Dr. Sanjay Mathrani, Dr. Nihal Jayamaha Abstract Collaborative product development (CPD) is a current business approach towards increasing cooperation between different groups for introducing new and innovative designs to market. This research investigates the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in collaborative product development activities and its impact on the process outcomes. This will be accomplished by defining the overall CPD performance metrics for three sub-processes namely, partnership, collaboration, and product development. A formative index for assessing the ICT usage in collaborative product development will be developed using significant determinants of ICT use. The outcomes will enable product development practitioners to comprehensively evaluate CPD performance and assist managers in effective and efficient deployment of ICT for collaborative product development. The new set of CPD performance metrics and determinants of ICT use, will contribute to both product development and ICT disciplines while introducing a useful statistical application to support management of ICT for successful CPD. Keywords Collaborative product development, information and communication technology, performance evaluation Introduction Collaborative product development (CPD) is a widely accepted modern business strategy which results in high quality, low cost products with shorter time to market and hence a powerful source of competitive advantage (e.g., Jafari, Ahmed, Dawal, & Zayandehroodi, 2010; Mathrani, Mathrani, & Liu, 2011). Organizations practicing CPD collaborate with internal and external groups throughout different stages of the product development (PD) process to utilize their specific core competencies for enhancing product quality and delivery. While industry specific CPD frameworks are common (e.g., Arsenyan and Büyüközkan (2012b) – software industry, Kim, Lee, Kim, Lee, and Ryu (2013) – automotive parts industry), developing generalizable models across various industries is challenging due to little research on generic contingencies of the main supporting tools such as information and communication technologies. Information and communication technology (ICT) is a major enabler of intra/inter-organizational collaboration, which is essential for CPD. Antecedents of ICT use in new product development (NPD) and impact of ICT on NPD performance have been increasingly discussed topics in literature (e.g., Barczak, Sultan, & Hultink, 2007; Durmuşoğlu & Barczak, 2011; Heim, Mallick, & Peng, 2012). However, none of these studies shed light on the relationship between using ICT and performance of entire CPD process. Available research mostly address CPD performance partially, through processes such as knowledge management, trust building, and partnership creation (e.g., Kern & Kersten, 2007; Lau, Hirsch, & Matheis, 2013). Therefore, this research proposes to develop a holistic CPD performance evaluation framework, including metrics for the performance of all sub-processes: partnership, collaboration, and PD (Büyüközkan & Arsenyan, 2012) involved in CPD.