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Abstract
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Since 1980s, both academia and practitioners have discussed where to locate R&D activities within organizations to promote innovation– either corporate R&D labs, operating division labs, or contract research from operating division. While various researches being conducted on this theme, little research has fully explored the differences of problem solving routines, in depth, – that is, how do researchers tackle problems, and how do they solve problems, caused by different organizational positioning. <br>In this research, we conducted an in-depth comparative case study for ArF resist materials (resist materials for an argon fluoride laser lithography) development carried out throughout 90s at three main players: Fujitsu, NEC, and IBM, with a particular focus on researchers' individual problem solving routines. The three players differed in locations where they had conducted research and in funding sources while pursuing the same research goal with an identical timeframe. This situation provided us with a unique research setting suitable for exploring influences of organizational positioning of R&D activities on innovation processes. <br>Our analysis demonstrated that differences in distance from the operating environment significantly affect innovation processes along three dimensions: the priority order of performance requirements considered, the sequence of problem-solving, and the scope of technology searches. <br>The result also implied that divisional-level R&D, surrounded by contextual environments, may reach an innovative solution faster than corporate-level research since it faces more complex trade-off problems to be solved simultaneously at the earlier stage, which drives researchers to generate the breakthrough solutions.
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