The major purpose of this thesis is to investigate the factors affecting the performance of defense prototype performance.
Factors are classified into six groups through theoretical survey. - The size of prototype, the characteristics of prototyping company, activities of early contraction, communication, task technology of work units, and the roles of team leaders.
Seven major hypotheses are developed and tested using the data collected from 54 R&D team leaders from a military research institute and from 43 team leaders from 16 prototyping companies. Factor analysis, correlation analysis, and multiple stepwise regression analysis are employed to test the hypotheses
The major findings of the study are followings: (1) The size of company is related to meeting budget limit. (2) The type and frequency of technical communication between the military research institute and prototyping companies, and the roles of team leaders are related to the performance of prototype. (3) The task difficulty moderates the relationship between communication frequency and meeting technical requirements. (4) Multiple stepwise regression analysis reveals that the champion role of team leader of the military research institute, prototype budget, interaction effect of communication and task difficulty affect meeting schedule, technical requirements and overall satisfaction.
The implications of the findings and future research directions are discussed.
