The Organization of R&D Flashcards
Why did the Germans fail at developing the radar in comparison to the British?
They had a rigid vertical hierarchy which caused poor communication between them.
In contrast, the British allowed for horizontal communication which was much more effective.
Differences between R&D and other departements
The kinds of people they hire
The kind of work that is done: R&D monitors and uses science
→ As a result, one might expect some variation in organizational characteristics:
→ Production involves relatively routine work with clear evidence of performance adequacy.
→ To examine performance, you look at output and quality, thus feedback is immediate
→ R&D involves non routine work with difficult to interpret evidence of performance and long periods of time before there is adequate evidence of performance.
→ Performance is not easily quantifiable and feedback is not immediate
→ To deal with this, you need an organization that takes all this into consideration
R&D at 3M
→ Researchers were allowed to do three kinds of work:
→ Things that were specifically assigned to them as part of firm-determined projects
→ Exploratory work as part of a firm-defined project
→ ‘Bootleg research’ where researchers explore their own ideas.
→ The first two were explicitly funded. To fund the third it was accepted that researchers might divert up to 10% of their budget to their own ideas.
What happened when exploratory work, including bootleg research, generated a useful idea? This firm had decided that it had to be given a specific structure to carry it forward - internal corporate venturing through a new venture division.
