Fostering Creativity in New Product Development Teams : Exploring the Impact of Control Systems on Individual Creativity

Sammanfattning: New product development is crucial for companies to remain strong and competitive in the market. Many companies today have implemented systems for controlling and managing their new product development. These control systems can be structured in a formal way with clear steps and criteria throughout the projects or in a more open-ended way where the projects follow a fuzzy front-end approach. Decision making is an immense factor in the control systems and the execution varies depending on its structure. The purpose with this thesis is to investigate the impact of which the structure of formal control systems as decision making tools, has on the creativity of members in new product development teams. Also, to explore which types of leadership behaviors in managers that best structure the formal control system for it to foster individual creativity. To fulfil this purpose, studies on how individuals perceive their work environment and their ability to be a part of the processes have been done.   This qualitative study was conducted by first building a theoretical framework which provided the research question, "How does the structure of formal control systems affect the creativity in individuals working in NPD teams?”. Data collection was done in a Swedish context using multiple case studies at various sized companies in diverse industries. Primarily through semi-structured interviews which then was followed up by secondary data. The collected data have been analysed by using a cross-case analysis where the identified themes developed an understanding that helped answer the research question. The findings provide value in the field with new insights in the management of innovation and new product development.