About this issue

THE PAPERS in this issue do not cluster around a single topic or small set of topics. They range widely across the spectrum of problems which managers of Research, Development, and Engineering (RD&E) face in their attempts to contribute to the innovation process. One subset of the papers focuses on aspects of project management and role perceptions and performance. The notion of “organizational politics” as a major mode of doing business in RD&E is not at all foreign to people involved in the day-to-day negotations, interactions, influence processes, and “power trips” that are characteristic of all organizational behavior, not excluding the rationalappearing work in the R&D/Innovation process. Some modes of project control are more formal than others, relying primarily on position, designated leadership, credentials, and other formal aspects of organizational control. Other modes involve personality, charismatic leadership, “tricks of the trade,” subtle trading off of favors and support, and other informal manifestations of interpersonal relationships. Effective project managers appear to be able to bring both kinds of factors to bear in their efforts to manage their people and control the path of their projects. The process of project management may be supported or hindered by either set of factors if incompletely understood and/or improperly applied for purposes other than the agreed-upon goals of the organization.