INNOVATION OF PROCESS TECHNOLOGY: EXPLORING DETERMINANTS FOR ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN

Abstract

At present, R&D managers have little guidance on how to design organizations with respect to organizational affiliation of process innovation. While process innovation in the process industries traditionally accounts for a large share of the company's total development resources it has nevertheless not received much attention in academic studies. In this paper four variables: (1) Industry category, (2) Size of R&D organization, (3) Process innovation intensity and (4) Newness of process innovation are statistically tested against the organizational affiliation of process innovation, based within either R&D or production. The study provides new empirical support for the positive association between the degree of newness and the organization of process innovations. By extensively analysing and discussing the findings in terms of both pros and cons for different organizational structural choices for process innovation, the paper also offers managers practical guidance in making organizational design decisions.