When Research Meets Development: Antecedents and Implications of Transfer Speed

Abstract

In this paper, we focus on the organization of new product development in large, R&Dintensive firms. In these firms, research is often conducted in dedicated projects at specialized research labs. Once research results are achieved by project teams, they are transferred to business units for further development and commercialization. We investigate the speed whereby research projects transfer their first research results to business units (hereafter: transfer speed). In particular, we analyze the antecedents and performance implications of transfer speed. Based on data of 503 research projects from a European R&D intensive manufacturing firm, our results suggest that a fast transfer speed (as measured by the time it takes for a research project to develop and transfer first research results to business units) is associated with a better research performance (as measured by the total number of transfers the research project generates). Moreover, we find that different types of external R&D partners— science-based and market-based partners— play distinct roles speeding up first research transfers. While market-based partnerships (customers and suppliers) generally contribute to a faster transfer of research results, science-based partnerships (universities and research institutions) only speed up research transfers of technologically very complex projects. Our results also show that early patent filings by research projects accelerate first research transfers