Examining the role of team boundary buffering as a proactive and reactive stress intervention for boundary spanning new product teams

In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, the capacity of new product development (NPD) teams to innovate hinges significantly on their ability to leverage external networks, known as ‘team boundary spanning’. While this activity is traditionally viewed as beneficial, its potential to exacerbate job stress and consequently diminish team satisfaction and NPD performance demands closer examination. Our research extends this area of inquiry by exploring the impact of team boundary spanning on job stress within NPD teams. Drawing on the conservation of resources theory, we hypothesize that team boundary spanning increases job stress which, in turn, decreases job satisfaction and NPD performance. This study also investigates the role of team boundary buffering as both a proactive and reactive intervention to mitigate the stress experienced by teams. Data were collected from 140 NPD projects in high and medium-high technology firms. Results reveal that team boundary spanning indeed elevates job stress and that high levels of stress correlate with declines in product quality and job satisfaction. Additionally, our results indicate that while team boundary buffering is not an effective proactive stress intervention, it is beneficial as a reactive intervention to the stress precipitated by boundary spanning activities.