Technological acquisition processes in product development of large companies

Marco Ferretti and Cristina Romano

International Journal of Product Development, 2006, vol. 3, issue 2, 191-213

Abstract: Companies are increasingly required to invest larger portions of their revenues in Research and Development (R&D) in order to gain and/or maintain their competitive advantage. Since firms need a portfolio of competencies which is hard to find in a single organisation, they try to create R&D structures characterised by high levels of flexibility and by research managers who act as filters of the R&D make or buy decisions. Empirical evidences show that a wide spectrum of solutions can be adopted by such research managers: from internal R&D to fully externalised research contracts. According to the case study analysis, we will present the evidences of two large Italian firms in order to describe and understand the following: the R&D solution adopted by mature industry companies; and if a gap between the empirical evidence and the traditional literature on product innovation really exists.

Keywords: product innovation; new product development; NPD; make or buy; research and development; R&D; cooperative networks; technology acquisition; research management; Italy. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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