• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.10 no.11
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• pp.3373-3383
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• 2009

The aim of the current study is to look at the mediating effects of structural features (i.e. decentralization, formalization, and specialization) on the relationship between product variety and the performance of product family. This study investigates the impact of decentralization and formalization for platform and derivative projects separately and in the context of the performance of the product family as a whole, as opposed to individual projects. In addition to relationships between people and groups, the current study considers physical element of an organization such as geographical location in which business tasks are conducted. The current study focuses on spatial differentiation which refers to the number of different sites or locations operated by an organization. Based on a cross-industry sample of 103 Korean manufacturers, this study examines the role of organizational structure features in which firms successfully increase product variety. The study examines that formalization in platform projects and decentralization in derivative projects enhance high variety firms' product family performance. The study finds significant mediating effect of spatial proximity on the relationship between product variety and product family performance.