The relationship between team communication, structure, and academic R&D performance: Empirical evidence of the national telecommunication program in Taiwan

This research evaluates the frontier National Telecommunication Program (NTP) in Taiwan using the data envelopment analysis approach and analyzes the influence of team communication and structure on R&D performance by establishing a structural equation modeling relationship. The results show that team communication is highly correlated with R&D performance. The high-scored projects have internal communication patterns with a higher meeting frequency but shorter dialogue duration, a uniform distribution of regular meetings, a scheme for the 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 external communication patterns with a gatekeeper bridging inward and outward information, a lower frequency of time-consuming external sourcing, and a higher frequency of external cooperation, referencing, learning, and benchmarking. Though team structure has no significant influence on R&D performance, the high-scored research group focused more on the structural dimensions of research strategy, laboratory management, and motivation incentives. This research will provide effective principles of project management to team leaders and industrial policy guidelines to program sponsors.