The organization and geography of Japanese R&D: results from a survey of Japanese electronics and biotechnology firms

Abstract

The paper reports the results of a mail survey of and personal interviews with R&D managers of the largest Japanese electronics and biotechnology firms regarding the organizational and geographic dimensions of their R&D activities. The results indicate that the importance of multi-functional teams for Japanese R&D has been overemphasized. The transfer of employees between R&D and manufacturing and joint meetings are judged as being the most important factors in ensuring the information transfer between the two corporate functions. The findings indicate that basic research facilities have significant locational flexibility. However, applied research and production engineering need to be in close proximity to manufacturing. The differences between the electronics and biotechnology industries were only rarely significant.