Organizing R&D in a global environment

Abstract

Theories on R&D organisation draw on globalisation literature as well as on communication theories. This mixed discourse is a problem, since mixing levels of logic sometimes cause faulty conclusions. How is this double logic handled in organisations, and what is the effect on R&D organisation? This study investigates R&D activities in multinational companies with several production sites and markets, focusing what reasons and forces are mentioned in relation to the geographical structure of the R&D activities. We assume that there are opposing forces, both dispersing and contracting the R&D activities geographically. The purpose of the paper is to investigate perceived geographically dispersing and contracting forces on R&D activities, and how a possible conflict between these is handled. This is done by studying how the level of dispersion has come to be, what events or decision has caused the dispersion of R&D. We show that trends in R&D dispersion are active in two directions, one dispersing and one contracting, and that these are partly working at separate organisational levels. The dispersing forces are more prevalent at strategic levels, while the contracting forces are more pronounced at the operational level.

Reaping the Benefits: Mechanisms for Knowledge Transfer in Product Development Collaboration

“…Furthermore, the effect of co-location on knowledge transfer can be explained by the development of informal relationships between people from the collaborating companies, serving as links for knowledge transfer (e.g., Lawson et al, 2009;Sharifi and Pawar, 2002). Hence, similar to previous research (e.g., Richtnér and Rognes, 2008;Tsai and Ghoshal, 1998), it can be argued that co-location contributes to the development of social interaction, which enhances knowledge transfer in collaborative PD teams. A plausible explanation for this is that people develop integrative skills enhancing knowledge transfer capacity (Ramirez and Dickenson, 2010).…”

Organizational interfaces for knowledge integration in product development collaborations

“…The literature offers several explanations to why physical location has a direct influence on performance in product development (Allen, ; Brown & Eisenhardt, ). Comparing the two collaborations, it is clear that location played a central role in the function of organizational interfaces; it directly influences how and to what extent people interact, and highlights that companies in collaborations face a choice between distributed co‐location or having to co‐locate the collaboration (McDonough, Kahn, & Barczak, ; Richtnér & Rognes, ). We identified two very different solutions to the question of location.…”