Competencies of Bridge Managers for Facilitating Global R&D Projects

Abstract

Global research and development (R&D) projects are common in multinational companies. Prior studies mainly paid attention to the global R&D projects from an organizational perspective such as organizational structures and foreign R&D unit coordination. This study aims at contributing to the improvement of global R&D projects by focusing on the competencies of individual managers (called bridge managers) who bridge organizations of different countries and facilitate research collaboration between teams in different countries. Bridge managers (BMs) are especially needed in offshore R&D projects to assist organizations to utilize knowledge resources in emerging countries including India. We collected data using online survey and analyzed data of 73 managers who have experience in facilitating global R&D projects. Results of qualitative comparative analysis showed that resilience and ability to understand worldwide business could help managers to solve communication difficulty in global R&D projects. The significance of this study is that we clarify the relationships between the competencies of BMs and the difficulties in global R&D projects. BMs could possess specific competencies for solving particular difficulties. Organizations could utilize the list of competencies in human resource management practices for recruitment, training, and assignment of BMs to facilitate their global R&D projects.