			Home About us Contact

R&D Managers (r&d + managers)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	100%

Selected Abstracts

Inventor bricolage and firm technology research and development

R & D MANAGEMENT, Issue 5 2009
Preeta M. Banerjee
We examine the conditions around firm use of ,inventor bricolage,' or the reconstruction of technological capabilities through reallocation of extant individual inventors to address new opportunities embodied in patents. Empirically, we examine the dynamics of both firm and individual patenting activity in publicly traded Life Science Diagnostic firms to explore how inventor bricolage is related to firms' existing research and development (R&D) capabilities and firms' acquisition of external capabilities through merger and acquisition (M&A) activities. Evidence at the firm level suggests that breadth of inventors' human capital and collaboration with co-researchers with relevant experience is positively related to inventor bricolage. At the inventor level, the fewer patents an inventor has, the broader the individual's prior patent portfolio, and the more co-researchers with relevant experience, the more likely inventors will patent in a new area. M&A does not appear to have an impact on the utilization of existing human capital. Our findings suggest that R&D managers should assign inventors with less assimilative capacity and more creative capacity in teams where there is relevant experience in order to promote inventor bricolage. [source]

Trust and creativity: understanding the role of trust in creativity-oriented joint developments

R & D MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2009
Francis Bidault
In this article we report on the design, prototyping and results of a research effort aimed at identifying whether and how trust affects the innovativeness of a partnership between two players. The methodology combined an experiment and two questionnaires. The research aimed to increase our understanding of trust and its impact on the innovative outcome of cooperation and to derive some guidance for economic actors, namely R&D managers and executives who intend to build innovation-oriented relationships with their business partners. Specifically, we investigated the effect of trust on partners' creativity and willingness to invest financially in a joint development. Our results show that more trustful partners invest higher amounts in the alliance, while there seems to be an optimum amount of mutual trust between partners who maximize their joint creativity and innovativeness; if the level of mutual trust is below or above this threshold, their joint creativity seems to increase less or even to decrease. Our findings suggest that joint development projects should always include explicit trust development activities at the beginning of the project, and that the amount of trust in the joint team should be monitored to avoid the negative consequences of excessive trust. [source]

New directions in R&D: current and prospective challenges

R & D MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2008
Jeremy Howells
This paper investigates the paradox of research and development (R&D), that is being increasingly undervalued by firms and nations, and yet continues to grow and prosper in terms of overall size and reach. The analysis outlines key developments that are currently affecting the growth and development of R&D activity and highlights the issues and problems that R&D managers and policymakers may likely face over the next decade. [source]

Managing innovation in a knowledge intensive technology organisation (KITO)

R & D MANAGEMENT, Issue 5 2002
Audrey Verhaeghe
This study aims to add to the existing knowledge of how innovation works in organisations. By understanding how to assess/evaluate processes that support and enable innovation, managers can better manage innovation as a business process. This paper addresses elements of organisational behaviour that relate to people management where innovation and technology management is concerned. Perception plays a crucial role in driving behaviour and therefore the widely accepted business scorecard methodology has been used to measure innovation practices in the organisation. The research was done in a knowledge intensive technology organisation (KITO) in South Africa. Interviews with managers of R&D were conducted. These interviews were used to adapt an existing audit instrument to suit the technology,based organisation. Thereafter, a comprehensive audit of innovation was conducted at three different management levels using the adapted instrument. Over 100, mostly R&D managers, were asked to complete a scorecard,based questionnaire and to draw a visual representation (VR) of innovation. The results of the interviews, audit and VRs were used to produce a management framework that is not only applicable to a KITO, but can also be used widely to improve innovation through enhanced visual understanding of any technology,based organisation. The results of the study indicate that measuring innovation through a validated instrument is highly valuable. The Holistic System Framework for innovation and the measurement instrument facilitated (1) management of, and (2) organisational learning about innovation. The comprehensive audit indicated, on a strategic level, the strengths and weaknesses of the innovation process as practised in the organisation. The instrument is valuable at a strategic management level as it indicates where in the organisation the gaps exist regarding the management of the process of innovation with the aim to create a competitive advantage. [source]

Market orientation, interdepartmental integration, and product development performance

THE JOURNAL OF PRODUCT INNOVATION MANAGEMENT, Issue 5 2001
Kenneth B. Kahn
Various research studies have shown that a market orientation and interdepartmental integration can positively influence product development performance. Addressed in this article is whether market orientation and interdepartmental integration both equally influence product development performance, whether one of these constructs is more influential than the other, and whether such influence is dependent on the type of department being examined? Analyzing survey data from 156 marketing, manufacturing, and R&D managers, the tentative results suggest that a market orientation and interdepartmental integration correlate to improved product development and product management performance in varying degrees across these three manager sets. It appears that a positive relationship between market orientation and product development petformance is likely to be reflected by the marketing department, while marketing and manufacturing departments are likely to reflect a positive relationship between the general construct of market orientation and product management performance. Manufacturing managers also reflect a positive relationship between interdepartmental integration and product development and product management performance. Further analyses involving the elements of a market orientation and interdepartmental integration find that a customer orientation appears important to performance in the case of marketing managers, and that collaboration is important to performance in the case of manufacturing managers. R&D managers did not reflect any statistically significant relationships between market orientation, interdepartmental integration, their constructs, and performance. These results should not be taken as refuting the claim of an important relationship between market orientation and product development performance, however. The present results refine our understanding of market orientation to consider department-specific effects, as well as temper the claims that implementing a market orientation will readily lead to improved product development performance across all departments in an organization. This may or may not be the case, depending on the focal department. [source]

Is All Communication Created Equal?: An Investigation into the Effects of Communication Mode on Perceived Information Quality

THE JOURNAL OF PRODUCT INNOVATION MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2000
Elliot Maltz
Enhancing communication between functions is crucial to successful product development and management. Previous work in the product innovation management literature has made two implicit assumptions. First, that increasing the frequency of information dissemination from one function to the other always improves the perceived quality of the information received. The second assumption is that all types of interfunctional communication carry equal weight in the decision-making process of the target of that communication. The current study develops a typology of communication modes, which suggests a rationale for why these assumptions may not be true. The empirical findings of the study, based on a survey of 504 nonmarketing managers indicate that the relationship between total communication frequency and perceived information quality (PIQ) is nonlinear. Specifically, the study finds that marketing managers can either communicate too little or too much with nonmarketing managers. If they interact too infrequently, they run the risk of not understanding the way to most effectively communicate market information. If they communicate too much, they may overload the manager with too much information and erode the overall quality of the information sent. In addition, some modes of communication are more effective in improving perceptions of the quality of market information. For instance, regular e-mail sent by marketing managers seems to have no effect on perceived information quality. On the other hand, e-mail sent with supporting documentation can have a strong positive effect on perceived information quality. Impromptu phone calls by marketing have less positive effects than scheduled phone calls. Interestingly, too much of the wrong types of communication actually seem to reduce perceptions of perceived information quality, and consequently the likelihood that market information will be used. The study also suggests that certain kinds of communication are better for manufacturing managers and others more effective in sharing information with R&D managers. For instance, disseminating information through written reports seems to reduce perceived information quality. This is particularly true for R&D managers. On the other hand too many meetings can reduce perceptions of PIQ, particularly on the part of manufacturing managers. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. [source]