A Coalitional Perspective on the Role of the R&D Department within the Organization

Abstract

The extant literature has analyzed how various organizational and managerial issues (e.g., cross‐functional integration and certain leadership styles) are related to the innovativeness of the organization and new product development. However, political processes in the form of influence and power structures between subunits and their impact on organizational innovativeness have not been researched. The present paper theoretically develops and empirically validates by means of survey data from 243 organizations, a model of the antecedents and performance outcomes of influential R&D departments as the major proponent of innovations and new product developments within an organization. There are three major findings: First, an R&D department can increase its influence within the organization by fostering its degree of innovativeness and its customer connection, but its integration with other departments negatively impacts its position. Second, influential R&D departments positively impact organizational performance through organizational innovativeness, particularly in cost‐leadership organizations; this finding emphasizes the relevance of influence and power structures to research on organizational issues in this research stream. Third, the findings show some reciprocal relationships: While some influence tactics increase the influence of the R&D department, an influential R&D department makes increased use of these influence tactics to maintain its position.