The effects of creative problem solving training on creativity, cognitive type and R&D performance

The effects of Creative Problem Solving (CPS) training on creativity, cognitive type, and R&D performance were investigated with 106 R&D workers of a large government–owned manufacturing company in Taiwan. Seventy–one of them volunteered to participate in the CPS training and were divided into three groups. Each group received 12 hours of CPS training and two follow–up training sessions over a one–year long period in a time–series design. The 'Circle Test of the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking', and the 'Myers–Briggs Type Indicator' were administered before and after the CPS training. R&D performance averaged over the past three years before the CPS training and one year after the pretest were obtained from the company. Results showed that participant's scores on fluency and flexibility of ideas were higher after the CPS training. There was also an increase in the number of persons being classified as extrovert or feeling type of cognition. In terms of R&D performance, the participants' number of co–authored service projects increased significantly from pretest to posttest, whereas no such change was observed among those 35 R&D workers who did not participated in the CPS.     

区域工业企业R&D投入产出绩效的DEA评价及分析

为解释不同区域工业企业RD活动投入规模、结构和绩效之间的关系,找出区域工业企业RD活动的差异和特点,利用数据包络分析方法(DEA)的C2 R模型和BC2模型,构建了由2个投入指标和3个产出指标构成的区域工业企业RD投入产出绩效评价指标体系,运用详实的统计数据对2014年和2010年中国部分省市区工业企业的RD投入产出绩效进行了DEA测度及分析。结果表明,中国区域工业企业RD投入产出绩效的技术效率小于规模效率,各省市区工业企业RD投入产出绩效的技术有效性与规模有效性呈现很强的正相关关系。各省市区要根据自身的经济、技术基础,因地制宜地制定提高其工业企业RD投入产出绩效的有效对策。     

Managing innovative R&D teams

Successful R&D groups not only generate innovative ideas, but also transfers these newly created concepts through the organizational system for economic gain. While innovation is not a random process, managers often argue that R&D performance is hard to measure and even more difficult to manage. An exploratory field study into technology-oriented R&D environments determines the principle factors that influence innovation-based performance of R&D teams. The results identify specific barriers and drivers to innovative team performance and provide insight into the type of an organizational environment and managerial leadership that is conducive to innovative R&D team performance. The data further suggest that many of the performance variables have their locus outside the R&D organization. Yet, managerial leadership style, both at the R&D team level and at senior management, has significant impact on creativity that ultimately affects R&D performance.     

The roles of R&D team leaders in Korea: a contingent approach

This study empirically examines the relationship between the role of R&D project leaders and their team performance using data from 87 project teams in 6 R&D organizations in Korea. The results reveal that:
(1) R&D project leaders played five different roles in performing their jobs – strategic planner, team builder, gatekeeper, technical expert, and champion;
(2) All but the champion role of a leader is positively related with project team performance;
(3) However, this relationship between the role of leader and project team performance varies according to the characteristics of R&D project teams and their tasks.
Specifically, it becomes important for a leader to focus less on the team building role as the team gets older. The team building role of a leader, however, is more important for higher performance of relatively certain R&D projects, while for uncertain R&D projects, the strategic planning role appears to be more crucial. Based on these results, this study discusses several managerial and theoretical issues related to the role of a leader in R&D project teams.     

Product–service innovation and performance: the role of collaborative partnerships and R&D intensity

Treating the intersection of the strategic partnerships, R&D intensity and servitisation literatures, this study explores empirically whether external collaborative service development and provision and industrial R&D intensity help to unpack the complex relation between product–service innovation (servitisation) and performance. We argue that manufacturing firms implementing services benefit from strategic partnerships with Knowledge‐Intensive Business Service (KIBS) firms. KIBS partnering provides opportunities for downsizing, externalising risks and sharing knowledge. Additionally, manufacturers in R&D‐intensive industries are more likely to benefit from implementing service provision than firms in other sectors because of industry dynamics and reduced customer uncertainty. The study surveys executives in 370 large manufacturers worldwide. Results reinforce the importance of concentric strategic partnerships to successful product–service innovation in high R&D industries.     

Person–project fit and R&D performance: a case study of Industrial Technology Research Institute of Taiwan

This study examined the relation between the research and development (R&D) performance and the fit between a researcher's cognitive type and the task demand of the project that was implied in Wang, Wu & Horng's (1999) study. Three hundred and eighteen research projects completed by 205 project leaders in the 3 years were classified into Unsworth's four creativity types along two dimensions: (1) whether the research addressed an open- or closed-ended problem and (2) whether the project was assigned or actively sought by the researcher. Each researcher's personal traits were assessed using Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and Kirton's Adaptor–Innovator Scale (KAI). Results show that researchers with a conforming, feeling, or judging-type cognition performed better with assigned projects for solving closed problems. Those with an originality and intuitive-type cognition performed better on self-initiated projects for solving open-ended problems. Researchers with sensing-type cognition performed better with assigned projects for solving open-ended questions. Thus, a careful match between a researcher's cognitive type and the task demand of project is important for R&D management.     

Performance measurement in R&D: exploring the interplay between measurement objectives, dimensions of performance and contextual factors

Measuring research and development (R&D) performance has become a fundamental concern for R&D managers and executives in the last decades. As a result, the issue has been extensively debated in innovation and R&D management literature. The paper contributes to this growing body of knowledge, adopting a systemic and contextual perspective to look into the problem of measuring R&D performance. In particular, it explores the interplay between measurement objectives, performance dimensions and contextual factors in the design of a performance measurement system (PMS) for R&D activities. The paper relies on a multiple case study analysis that involved 15 Italian technology-intensive firms. The results indicate that firms measure R&D performance with different purposes, i.e. motivate researchers and engineers, monitor the progress of activities, evaluate the profitability of R&D projects, favour coordination and communication and stimulate organisational learning. These objectives are pursued in clusters, and the importance firms attach to each cluster is influenced by the context (type of R&D, industry belonging, size) in which measurement takes place. Furthermore, a firm's choice to measure R&D performance along a particular perspective (i.e. financial, customer, business processes or innovation and learning) is influenced by the classes of objectives (diagnostic, motivational or interactive) that are given higher priority. The implications of these results for R&D managers and scholars are discussed in the paper.     

The antecedents and innovation effects of domestic and offshore R&D outsourcing: The contingent impact of cognitive distance and absorptive capacity

This paper analyzes differences in the antecedents and performance consequences of domestic and offshore R&D outsourcing. Offshore outsourcing is characterized by larger cognitive distance. We find that absorptive capacity from internal R&D allows for more offshore outsourcing and that offshore outsourcing leads to more positive innovation outcomes, especially product innovation.     

Diversity is strategy: the effect of R&D team diversity on innovative performance

Diversity in the workplace has attracted significant interest in organisations that want to attract and retain talented employees. Breakthrough innovation requires a wider knowledge base, and organisations increasingly rely on multidisciplinary R&D teams to identify scientific developments that bridge gaps and reduce time to market. However, research on the performance implications of R&D team diversity remains limited and the empirical evidence inconsistent. This paper investigates the impact of surface and deep-level diversity on R&D teams’ innovative performance and how diversity dimensions interact to drive innovation. We find supportive evidence that R&D team characteristics influence innovation outcomes, confirming our hypothesising that diversity is a valuable strategy for an organisation to pursue as it provides greater cognitive ability. Each diversity facet however has its own distinct effects depending on the novelty of innovation and industry. Yet, diversity is not solely positive and excessive heterogeneity could be detrimental to R&D team performance. Our findings suggest that high diversity in gender or skills in cognitively diverse teams might be negative attributes to take into consideration. Senior managers and organisations should therefore consider the appropriate mix of capabilities to benefit from creativity in diverse R&D teams and avoid possible conflict and distrust associated with diversity.     

How does the partner type in R&D alliances impact technological innovation performance? A study on the Korean biotechnology industry

The number of strategic alliances for R&D activities in the biotechnology industry is sharply increasing. Some studies show that each alliance partner type has different alliance motives, resources and capabilities, organizational structures and cultures, and degrees of competition with partners, which can lead to different performances of strategic alliances. In this regard, this study conducts an empirical analysis of the different impact of each type of alliance partner on technological innovation performance and finds the moderating effect of absorptive capacity and potential competition by categorizing strategic alliances for R&D activities in the biotechnology industry into three types: vertical-downstream alliances, vertical-upstream alliances, and horizontal alliances. This study analyzed 206 Korean biotechnology firms and their strategic alliances for a total of 292 R&D activities. The results of the analysis showed that vertical alliances have a positive impact on technological innovation performance, while horizontal alliances have an inverted U-shaped relationship with technological innovation performance caused by the effect of competition. Additionally, it was confirmed that the R&D intensity of biotechnology firms has a moderating effect of increasing the impact of vertical-upstream alliances on technological innovation performance.     

Firms' open innovation policies,laboratories' external collaborations,and laboratories' R&D performance

The value of the open innovation approach is now widely recognized, and the practice has been extensively researched, but still very little is known about the relative impact of firm‐level and laboratory‐level open innovation policies and practices on R&D performance. This study attempts to measure that impact by analyzing a sample of 203 laboratories of Japanese firms located in Japan. It examines simultaneously the effects of firm‐level open innovation policy and laboratory‐level external collaborations on laboratory R&D performance. The study aims to go beyond a general understanding of the importance of open innovation; it shows how an open innovation policy can have a positive and significant effect on collaborations between a laboratory and local universities or business organizations. The results also show how an open innovation policy can contribute to the laboratory's R&D performance by facilitating external collaborations by the laboratories. It demonstrates how these factors affect R&D performance in different ways, depending on the type of R&D tasks. Our findings suggest several theoretical and practical implications in the field of R&D management.     

Inter-firm Collaboration and Learning: The Case of the Japanese Automobile Industry

This paper investigates the effect of intra-firm Research and Development expenditure and inter-firm collaboration on firm performance. It is proposed that R&D expenditures enable a company to improve knowledge and assimilate the exchange of information within non-routine collaboration activities. The hypotheses are tested by an empirical study on inter-firm technical collaboration in Japanese Automobile firms during the years 1975–1995, using the method of first-order auto-regression on a panel data set. The findings indicate that R&D expenditure increases performance, but do not allow clear conclusions on the effects of collaborations.     

A contemporary justice perspective on dual ladders for R&D professionals

Research and development (R&D) professionals play a key role in companies' innovation performance. Whereas prior research has indicated the potential benefits of dual ladder career systems to retain and motivate R&D professionals, there is a lack of knowledge regarding the design properties of dual ladders that facilitate such positive effects. The purpose of this study is to address this research gap by exploring how organizations can design dual ladders to enhance R&D professionals' organizational commitment and career satisfaction. Drawing on contemporary justice theory, we point to two factors integral for the successful application of dual ladders: the perceived equality of the technical ladder and the transparency of the dual ladder. These factors are related to R&D professionals' organizational commitment and career satisfaction. Furthermore, this study investigates whether these relationships are moderated by R&D professionals' age and self‐directedness in career management as well as firm size. The hypotheses are tested in a cross‐level study with 9 heads of R&D departments, 32 human resource managers, and 382 R&D professionals from 32 organizations. Based on the analyses, this study finds positive relationships between the perceived equality and the transparency of the dual ladder with R&D professionals' organizational commitment and career satisfaction. In addition, the findings show that the effects of the perceived equality of the technical ladder on R&D professionals' career satisfaction are weaker at high levels of self‐directed career management. The study contributes by developing theory on the consequences of dual ladders' design properties and moderating influences thereon. Thus, this research has implications for the literature on innovation management by expanding the knowledge on the interplay between career management and the human side of innovation.     

Flexibility planning for managing R&D projects under risk

Incorporating managerial flexibility in an innovative R&D project is important, because managers face greater uncertainty in today's competitive and dynamic changing environment. It is essential to bring managerial flexibility into R&D project planning to decrease technical and market risks, while increasing potential market value. The objective of this paper is to develop a flexibility planning methodology based on real option analysis to improve managerial flexibility for R&D projects. The proposed methodology identifies potential risks that may occur during every R&D stage. It also recognizes a cascading option structure to resolve the identified risks, and evaluates and selects adequate options that maximize the potential value of the project. Instead of using a traditional option pricing method, a dynamic programming model that considers multidimensional product performance and market payoff is used to evaluate the R&D project value. Using the proposed methodology, managers can identify future scenarios as a function of their management actions. The proposed flexibility planning methodology can help managers improve managerial flexibility of R&D project and increase the success rate of product launch. A drug development project is used to illustrate the proposed methodology.     

Peer assessment in industrial R&D departments

The paper reviews the current state of knowledge on peer assessment of performance with special reference to industrial R&D organisations. The authors define the term "peer" and discuss briefly various techniques for assessment (nomination, ranking and rating). The authors review the literature of peer review to show that it can add to the value of assessment and that certain obvious objections to peer rating apply also to supervisory review. Their conclusion is that peer review is a useful adjunct to appraisal, but only if it is completely acceptable to all involved. The conditions for achieving this acceptance are discussed. The paper concludes by showing how peer rating can be used for team development.     

Thematic Thinking and Individual Performance in Research and Development

Individuals differ in their preference for processing information on the basis of taxonomic, feature‐based similarity, or thematic, relation‐based similarity. These differences, which have been investigated in a recently emerging research stream in cognitive psychology, affect innovative behavior and thus constitute an important antecedent of individual performance in research and development (R&D) that has been overlooked so far in the literature on innovation management. To fill this research gap, survey and test data from the employees of a multinational information technology services firm are used to examine the relationship between thematic thinking and R&D professionals' individual performance. A moderated mediation model is applied to investigate the proposed relationships of thematic thinking and individual‐level performance indicators. Results show a positive relationship between thematic thinking and innovativeness, as well as individual job performance. While the results do not support the postulated moderation of the innovativeness–job performance relationship by employees' political skill, they show that the relationship between thematic thinking and job performance is fully mediated by R&D professionals' innovativeness. The present study is thus the first to reveal a positive relationship between thematic thinking and innovative performance.     

Career orientations of R&D professionals in Korea

This study empirically examined the relationships between career orientations of R&D professionals in Korea and other personal characteristics such as demographic factors, work-related outcomes, and reward preferences. The results, based on the survey about 1,240 technical people in 15 R&D organizations, revealed five distinctive and independent career orientations: technical, manager, project, technical transfer, and entrepreneurial orientations. The career orientations of R&D professionals are found to be different between private and public sectors and to be associated with their education level and organizational tenure. It is also observed that R&D professionals with different career orientations exhibit different work-related outcomes and reward preferences. For instance, technical-oriented professionals tend to be more educated, to exhibit better job attitudes and technical performances, and to favor professional rewards. While those with manager and transfer orientations are longer-tenured, have more positive job attitudes but lower technical performances, and prefer social status and prestige and career rewards in their organization. Both project- and entrepreneur-oriented professionals exhibit a less positive attitude toward their organizations, but seek different reward schemes: the former pursues challenging R&D projects with autonomy and the latter favors financial returns. Finally, the implications of these findings for managing careers of R&D professionals are discussed.     

International management of R&D: The Swedish Experience

This paper summarizes the results of in-depth case studies of international R&D management in four Swedish multinational corporations. The results suggest that foreign volumes and shares of R&D expenditures are rapidly increasing. Through a rapidly increasing number of foreign acquisitions, foreign R&D laboratories have been added. As part of international rationalization of production, foreign units have been given global product mandates with responsibility both for manufacturing and R&D. In maturing foreign subsidiaries, routine technical activities have often evolved into proper R&D. Tight labour market conditions for engineers in Sweden have made it increasingly necessary to exploit existing technical capacity, regardless of location.
Concurrently, companies face new pressures for international coordination and control of R&D. Coordination is required to reduce product differentiation, to facilitate technology transfer and to ensure the technical and market compatibility of products and components developed at different locations but sold as part of total systems. Drawing on the experience in the four investigated companies, the paper discusses how systems and procedures can be developed to meet the need for coordinated international R&D management.     

Exploring the differences in performance measurement between research and development: evidence from a multiple case study

Researchers and practitioners have recently paid great attention to research and development (R&D) performance measurement, although it is acknowledged to be a very challenging task because of R&D intrinsic uncertainty and complexity levels. In this paper, the problem of designing a performance measurement system (PMS) for R&D activities is addressed; specifically, we investigate if and how the design of the PMS is influenced by the type of activity it is applied to, namely Basic and Applied Research or new product development (NPD). We first develop a theoretical framework that comprises the main constitutive elements of a PMS for R&D. Then the framework is used for supporting a multiple case study analysis involving eight Italian technology-intensive firms. The research results show that the criteria for designing the constitutive elements of the PMS are radically different in Basic and Applied Research and NPD. The reasons behind the observed dissimilarities in the design criteria are widely discussed in the paper, as well as their implications for R&D managers.     

From Physics to Function: An Empirical Study of Research and Development Performance in the Semiconductor Industry

We present the results of an empirical study of research and development in the semiconductor industry. The study aimed to understand the drivers of innovation performance in an environment characterized by close links to science and a combination of technical novelty and manufacturing complexity. The data reveal substantial differences in research and development (R&D) performance, and R&D performance improvement, between firms. Analysis of our field observations suggests that these differences are associated with the use of experimentation and experience in guiding technology choices, matching options provided by scientific developments with the complex requirements of evolving production environments. We describe the technology choice process in some detail, and examine its nature in both U.S. and Japanese industrial settings.