Title: Technological acquisition processes in product development of large companies

Authors: Marco Ferretti, Cristina Romano

Addresses: Universita degli Studi di Napoli Parthenope, Dipartimento di Studi Aziendali, Via Medina, 40 80133 Napoli, Italy. ' Universita degli Studi di Napoli Parthenope, Dipartimento di Studi Aziendali, Via Medina, 40 80133 Napoli, Italy

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.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPD.2006.009366

International Journal of Product Development, 2006 Vol.3 No.2, pp.191 - 213

Published online: 23 Mar 2006 *

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