Team communications and academic R&D performance: A case of National Telecommunication Program of Taiwan

This research evaluates Taiwan National Telecommunication Program using the DEA approach and analyzes impacts of team communications on R&D performance by establishing a SEM relationship. The results show that team communications are highly correlated with the R&D performance. For the high-scored projects, they have the internal communication patters with a higher frequency of meeting but a shorter time-consumption dialogue, a uniform distribution of regular meeting, a lower hierarchy to meet with the project leader, a well-managed channel to access accumulative expertise, and an open forum for communication. They also have the external communication patterns with a gatekeeper bridging information inward and outward, a lower frequency of time-consumption external sourcing, and a higher frequency of external cooperation, referencing, learning, and benchmarking. The research will contribute guidelines for effective project management to team leaders and program sponsors.