The Chief Research and Development (R&D) Officer's contribution to innovation : a study in Consumer Packaged Goods multinationals

The Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) industry faces challenges that are making it increasingly harder for CPG multinational companies to compete. The lack of differentiation in CPG, evolving consumer preferences, and the need to offer the consumer a unique and valuable experience is requiring CPG multinational companies to continuously innovate. The Research and Development (R&D) function helps to overcome the pressing challenges that the CPG industry faces by contributing to the overall innovation that a firm can deliver. The underlying question is how R&D creates innovation in the context of a CPG multinational. Such innovation, in the form of new products and processes, would seemingly require a central R&D executive, defined in this thesis as the Chief R&D Officer, the person who is accountable for creating innovation for the firm in the R&D context. To contribute to innovation, the Chief R&D Officer must not only set the direction for R&D, but also execute this direction in terms of formulating the R&D strategy, and then managing the R&D organizational structure and leading the R&D organizational culture. The proposition is that the evolving role of the Chief R&D Officer is demanding that these senior executives think systematically about these elements to guarantee the short-term and long-term competitiveness of the R&D organization. If the Chief R&D Officer formulates the right strategy but has an inefficient organizational structure or lacks an innovative organizational culture, then the R&D organization will fail in creating innovation for the firm. This thesis also explores how Chief R&D Officers in the CPG multinational companies have coped with these key elements to achieve successful innovation.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Engineering and Management Program

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2016

Author dc:creator

• Rodriguez Hefferan, Javier

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• David Niño.

• Engineering and Management Program.
• System Design and Management Program.
• Engineering Systems Division.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/107601

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/107601