Knowledge transfer of research and development results on the petrochemical industry

Research and development outcomes should effectively turned into products for a business to achieve competitiveness. The business, however, must often overcome a Valley of Death that often lies between R&D and new products. The present work investigates factors contributing the formation of the Valley of Death in the chemical industry in which R&D outcomes is particularly vital to the innovation processes. Analysis involving the function and location of the R&D facility revealed that the Valley of Death is relatively often seen when the R&D department has independent R&D facilities only, or independent facilities along with facilities associated with production sites. It is suggested that the Valley of Death results from knowledge transfer problems, i.e. too heavy dependence on information transfer in the former case, and association with personnel relocation in the latter case where science-oriented and product-oriented projects go in parallel in the same site.