Collaborative Information Behaviour and Decision Making in Product Development

Engineering product development is a process that describes a chain of activities that starts with the identification of a market opportunity and ends with the manufacture of a product. It is invariably complex and requires engineers to address organisational interdependencies and competing technical demands. A major open question is how collaborative information behaviour is used by engineers in these challenging environments. This thesis seeks to answer this question by adopting a semi-structured interview approach to analyse the collaborative information behaviour and decision making modes of engineers in three organisations: Alpha, a power systems developer, Beta, a communication systems developer and Gamma, a developer of automotive parts. The thesis uses a novel approach to understanding product development based on activity theory, a systemic and sociotechnical framework for human activities. Engineering product development is conceptualised as a network of interdependent work systems linked by norms, rules, and the shared object of activity. The concept of “intermediary objects” is incorporated into this approach to conceptualise material and digital representations of the product. Multiple contradictions are identified in product development networks, both between work systems and within individual work systems. Engineers are found to adapt to these contradictions through four clearly defined decision making modes: “formal-centred”, “informal-centred”, “systematic” and “heuristic”. New technologies are found to facilitate or hinder collaboration, depending on how well they are aligned with the needs and practices of engineers. In contrast to existing paradigms, which show collaborative information behaviour to be informal, this research finds it to be formalised and pre-planned through existing procedures and rules. These findings have practical implications for the management of complex collaborative projects by providing an alternative perspective on decision making and collaborative information behaviour and by providing analytical tools to pinpoint contradictions between activity systems of stakeholders within product development networks.