The major objectives of this study are to analyze following three questions ; First, what is the relationship between the performance of R&D projects and its determinants such as the behavioral factors, corporate capabilities, project characteristics, and market dimensions?
Second, how different are the influences of determinants on their performance among basic research, applied research, and development projects?
Third, how different are the influences of determinants on their performance between "order-made production", one of the most important characteristics of plant industries, and "mass production" based on planned R&D activities?
The unit of analysis of this study is R&D project and the data of one hundred twelve projects (62 success and 50 failure) are collected from one corporate R&D laboratory and two divisional R&D laboratories of Company S. Hypotheses are tested using Kendall's tau-b correlation coefficient, regression, Fisher's z-test, and t-test.
The major findings of this study are as follows; First, top management support, communications, team climate, job satisfaction, R&D strength, strategic importance and relative advantage of project, market research, and marketing efforts are important to technological success of project. Top management support, team climate, R&D strength, strategic importance and relative advantage of project, market research, and efforts of commercialization are important to commercial success of project.
Second, relative advantage of project, team climate, and R&D strength have relatively strong relationship with technological success in case of development project.
Third, marketing strength has relatively strong relationship with technological success in case of R&D project for mass production. Team climate, job satisfaction, R&D strength, and strategic importance of project has relatively strong relationship with commercial success in case of R&D project for order-made production.
Fourth, level of top management support, communications, team climate, job satisfaction, R&D strength, strategic importance and relative advantage of project, market research, marketing efforts, and commercialization efforts are significantly different between success and failure projects.
Finally, summary and discussions on the success/failure factors on R&D project are made and limitations of the study are mentioned.
