ABSTRACT
Managing overseas R&D centers is becoming more challenging managerial task as firms accelerate their globalization efforts. The purpose of this paper is to explore efficient ways to manage global R&D centers successfully. To achieve this, theories and findings from information processing perspective and work group literature were drawn and applied to global R&D settings. Task uncertainty, task characteristic and group size were identified as a major determinant on R&D group performance. Also, five types of global R&D centers were identified: (1) technology transfer center, (2) indigenous center for local markets, (3) indigenous center for multiple markets, (4) internationally interdependent centers, and (5) global technology center. For each of these five types of R&D centers, managerial implications in the form of proposition were presented regarding information processing capacity and center size.
Keywords
R&D center, Information Processing, Work Group