Internal Research & Development Markets

In times of global markets, increasing competition and short product life cycles the effective and efficient management of industrial research and development (R&D) activities is of central importance for companies as well as for the whole economy. Traditionally the resources for R&D projects are allocated via planning- and budgeting procedures, evaluation methods and hierarchical decision-committees. This book presents resource allocation via internal markets as an alternative to such hierarchical decision procedures. It appears that the implementation of internal R&D markets has positive effects on the effectiveness and efficiency of internal R&D resource allocation processes. Internal R&D markets can help to overcome the weaknesses of traditional hierarchical structures, since they are characterised by short communication and decision procedures and thus contribute to the reduction of information asymmetries.