Theory versus practice in the staffing of R&D laboratories

The paper addresses the question of how far precept as revealed in the academic literature on staffing of industrial R&D organizations is reflected by practice in those organizations. The author has used the opportunity afforded by discussions with twenty-five middle- and higher-management staff in laboratories in four large European companies in the petrochemical, engineering and pharmaceutical industries to obtain an overview of their staffing practices.
Six aspects of staffing were enquired into: identifying and attracting persons with skills needed, selecting those satisfying organizational needs, developing the new recruit, measuring performance, appraising the individual's needs and career planning. The general impression was that the practices were remarkably similar, though some differences were observed between research- or discovery-oriented laboratories and development-oriented laboratories.
When compared with well-validated generalisations in the literature firms tend to use practices judged good in the literature though there are some significant deviations especially with respect to the value of the personal interview. In some respects firms use innovative practices not yet studied by academic researchers.