Abstract for: Psychological Safety and Group Learning: Cycle-Time Reduction for Collaborative Product Development

This study presents a system dynamics analysis of collaborative product development in a manufacturer-supplier dyad. We conduct a SD-based case study in Taiwan high-tech electronics where a manufacturer and a supplier form vertical product development partnerships. The SD inquiry helps inter-organizational project teams understand how cognitive and social factors such as psychological safety, level of collaboration, and group learning rather than technical factors such as the deployment of collaboration software affect the development cycle-time more. We set up a simulation model and give propositions based on simulation experiments. Simulation results show that higher level of psychological safety and collaboration contributes to the cycle-time reduction and facilitates group learning. Interestingly, the highest level of psychological safety and collaboration does not necessarily lead to most group learning activities. Moreover, project teams exhibit poorer group learning and team productivity when they merely set up higher performance goals without enhancing initial level of collaboration and psychological safety.