R&D Performance and Gatekeepers Nobuo TAKAHASHI Kenichi KUWASHIMA Masaki TAMADA
(Graduate School of Economics, University of Tokyo)
(Graduate School of Business Sciences, University of Tsukuba)
Abstract
There is a difference between Japanese pharmaceutical companies and Merck in the
research and development style. The difference between both can be simplified down to
the existence of the gatekeeper managers. The innovation research was based on the
implicit premise that the gatekeeper had some merit. Then it was not clarified how the
organizational performance changed when the gatekeeper existed. As a result of our
agent-based simulation, it is proven that gatekeeper managers observed in Merck
contribute to the start-up speed of the projects and the idea quantity. In the actual
research and development process, the phenomena linked with our simulation results are
observed. From this new viewpoint, we try to analyze the case of Merck whether the
start-up speed becomes the competitive advantage in research and development or not.
(e.g., Allen et al., 1979; Katz & Tshman, 1979)
(e.g., Macdonald & Williams, 1993; Klobas & Mc Gill, 1995;
Keller & Holland, 1983; Ebadi & Utterback, 1984; Zenger & Lawrence, 1989)
(path length): L (amount of effective idea)
Worldwide Strategic & Capital Planning
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