LEADERSHIP IN R&D PROJECTS
447
Leadership in R&D Projects
Diana Grosse
This article describes the results of an empirical study regarding a suitable style of R&D
project leadership, especially what tasks project leaders should perform by themselves and
what tasks they should delegate, what personal characteristics they should be endowed with
and what kind of relationships they should have with their team. Fifty interviews were held
in German institutions short-listed for an award for their innovative products by the Saxon
government. In contrast to the assumption of the Social Identity Theory, in these institutions
good R&D project leaders are not the ‘prototype’ of their team, but successfully balance the
interests of the company and the R&D project team.
Introduction
A
s Japanese automotive companies captured the European market in the 1970s,
German managers began to search for the
reasons that enabled the Japanese to drastically
reduce the developmental period of a new
vehicle, sometimes reducing the time by one
and a half years. One of the reasons, according
to a widely accredited study by Clark and
Fujimoto (1991, p. 78), was that the Japanese
create teams which are focused completely on
the project task. In this way, the problem of
employees’ prioritization of their respective
departmental goals that arises in the German
functional departmental organizations, was
avoided in these Japanese firms. In addition,
interface problems were hampering innovation in German institutions, such as the production department’s goal of cost reduction,
which could hardly be reconciled with the goal
of implementing new production methods,
whereby one must test new methods even
when these new methods induce higher costs.
In order to overcome these interface problems,
most organizations worldwide and also in
Germany nowadays employ project management for R&D and product and process development tasks.
Clark and Fujimoto (1991), and others
before and after them, also highlighted their
finding that the success or otherwise of the
project depends critically on the project leader.
They outline that what successful project
leaders are composed of, if anything, is that
they generally must be a heavyweight, i.e.,
© 2007 The Author
Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing
they can assert themselves within the organization (Clark & Fujimoto, 1991).
In this article we first of all further define
the attributes of (R&D) project leaders, leading to a number of propositions which were
explored in the context of R&D projects in
innovative German institutions.
Theoretical Background
The responsibilities of a leader include decision making, instruction and control, motivation, and the initiation of new assignments
(Kosiol, 1976, p. 100 et seq.). These actions must
be accomplished by a project leader, albeit
within the scope of a project. Therefore, s/he
must fulfill a task which is characterized by the
following attributes:
• time limit,
• complexity, and
• relative novelty (Corsten, 2000, p. 2).
When dealing with the development of a new
product, the attribute of interdisciplinarity
must be added because employees from
several different departments must work
together. This requires a modification of the
leadership functions. Instead of giving instructions, a project leader must integrate and work
with the different team members. Motivation
consists primarily of the willpower to overcome the barriers to innovation posed by the
employees (Witte, 1988). An important function is the co-ordination of the project assignments in conjunction with the main products
of the company.
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doi:10.1111/j.1467-8691.2007.00447.x
CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION MANAGEMENT
448
Leadership Theories
In the literature, three opinions differentiate
the key characteristics of a successful leader:
personality, leadership skills and relation to
employees. Essentially, all three characteristics
are of significance; however, during their
scientific research, the scientists’ focus has
changed several times. According to the Personalistic Approach, a leader distinguishes
himself through very particular characteristics
which differentiate him from the people he is
leading. This approach has a long philosophical tradition: Plato already advocated the view
that only a ruler with a wise personality could
be the head of a state.
Max Weber’s concept of a leader, who is
equipped with the characteristic of charisma,
plays a significant role. Due to his visionary
dedication in conjunction with his visual
judgement and the sense of responsibility,
this leader surmounts the strong restraints of
bureaucracy. According to past research traditions, these statements do not have any empirical foundation. In the following decades,
numerous studies attempted to eliminate this
disadvantage. In particular, after analysing 200
of these studies, Stogdill had ascertained that
for a project to be successful a project leader
should exhibit the following attributes (Wunderer & Grunwald, 1980):
•
•
•
•
•
aptitude and intelligence,
performance and dedication,
responsibility,
sympathy, and
status, socio-economical position
Furthermore, studies also revealed that some
of the employees also possessed the same
characteristics. Hence, the notion was disproved that leaders can be identified based
on their characteristics and that their characteristics differ from those of the employees.
Furthermore, many different characteristics
turned out to be lead to success depending
on which concept of success was taken into
account (Gebert, 2002). If the main purpose of
the project is to generate a large profit, it is
then necessary for the project leader to possess
analytical-calculative skills. On the other hand,
if the project is geared towards satisfying
the employees, then the project leader must
exhibit characteristics such as sympathy and to
be able to make compromises.
The measurement of success which is
applied to the project arises from the situational context in which the project is embedded; this is the goal that the company
has established. Due to the fact that the situational context varies with each project, each
individual project requires a specific type of
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project leader who manages the project in his
own specific way. These conclusions have
been the basis for numerous elaborations
in the field of leadership research (Nippa,
2006). The goal of these investigations was to
identify a leadership style for every relevant
situation that results in the successful outcome
of each project. It was quickly realized that
this plan was impractical. Therefore, further
investigation was limited to two types of
leadership styles: the task-oriented and the
people-oriented leadership styles. Thereafter,
researchers in the field of leadership styles
tried to establish leadership styles that are
suitable for certain situations.
Moreover, the study by Fiedler (1967) is
worth mentioning. He discovered that in situations with a very clear or with a vague task
structure, a task-oriented leadership style provides the necessary goal orientation. Yet, the
project leader can try to balance out the interests of all of the employees involved in the
project in ambivalent situations, thus implementing a person-oriented leadership style
(Fiedler, 1967). However, Fiedler also discovered that the choice of the appropriate leadership style depends not only on the structure of
the tasks but also on the personalities of the
employees. It is important not only what
the project leader assigns but also how the
employees interpret and implement these
instructions (Rickards & Moger, 2006, p. 11).
To list which attributes employees must
possess is just as absurd as situation-oriented
leadership styles, as the list would be endless.
However, the approach of conceiving the
behaviour as a result of the self-concept offers
a possibility to produce a general characterization of employee attributes. According to the
Self Categorizing Theory, people prefer actions
which coincide with their self-concept as the
sum of the cognitive representations that an
individual has from within. The self-concept
comprises three levels:
• the self-assessment of one’s own personality,
• the group to which one would like to
belong, and
• the awareness that one is a human being
(Utz, 1999).
In this context, the level of the reference group
is relevant. If subordinates perceive the project
team as a reference group, they will then contribute to the team and especially support
the project team and their actions (Tajfel &
Turner, 1979). To achieve the acceptance of
each team member, the whole group situation,
especially the leadership style of the project
leader and the work atmosphere within the
team, must allow each member to behave in
accordance with his self-perception.
© 2007 The Author
Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing
LEADERSHIP IN R&D PROJECTS
449
Situation
Cognition
Leader
Behaviour
Leader
Cognition
Team
Behaviour
Team
Behaviour
colleagues
Cognition
colleagues
Success
Figure 1. Leadership as an Interaction Between Leader and Employees
A part of self-perception is or should be
dedication; what you see as the purpose of
your own life. Of course, a project leader
cannot answer the question of the meaning of
life. However, the Charismatic Leadership
Theory requires the project leader to define the
meaning of the project and to communicate its
meaning to his employees. If successful in
communicating the meaning, then the project
leader is able to unleash unexpected innovative energy which results in more creative and
happier employees (Gardner & Avolio, 1998;
Berson & Linton, 2005). But a charismatic
leadership style is always in danger of allowing the employees to develop too close a
connection with the project leader, and, in particular, they might not be able to accept criticism. The project leader must guard against
these tendencies of integration.
The above depicted network that exists
between the project leader and his/her
employees is portrayed in Figure 1.
Proposition Development
Since the projects are to be executed within the
company, they must fit into the organizational
structure. Therefore, the job duties and the
decisional competencies of the project leader
and his employees must be predetermined.
This occurs using the Transaction Cost Theory
which states that the organizational structure
must be shaped in such a way that the cost of
the transactions – especially the information,
co-ordination and the motivational costs – are
minimal (Milgrom & Roberts, 1992, p. 29).
The transactions which are analysed in
this context are the transactions between the
project leader and the team members. This
approach is similar to the theory of transactional leadership (Burns, 1978). The difference
between the two theoretical concepts is that
the Transaction Cost Theory is more general.
For instance, it is only assumed that employees
maximize their utility whereas the transactional leadership theory allows for a closer
look at the specific goals of the project leader
© 2007 The Author
Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing
and the team members. As the disadvantage of
being non-specific is balanced by the advantage of making recommendations about the
organizational structure of a project, it was
decided to state the propositions here in terms
of Transaction Cost Theory.
The Transaction Cost Theory implies situational factors such as uncertainty and opportunistic behaviour. This article makes
allowance for these facts because it is dealing
with R&D projects (uncertainty) and because it
analyses incentives that are supposed to motivate the employees (the opportunistic effect is
reduced because team members have signed
an employment contract; see Baron & Kreps,
1999, p. 538). Moreover, it is assumed that
organizational structures are influenced by
the behaviour of the employees because they
try to accomplish the role allocations that
are implied by the structure elements. Consequently, seven propositions have been formulated about the behaviour of a successful
project leader. These propositions describe the
main elements of an organizational structure:
job duties, decision-making authority, hierarchical rank and communicative relations.
(Rickards and Moger identify this as an important aspect of leadership, Rickards & Moger,
2006, p. 5.)
According to Adam Smith, productivity can
be increased if a task is split into sub-tasks and,
thereafter, given to several employees who
will be able to realize the effects of learning.
These sub-tasks can be divided into managing
and executing sub-tasks within a project. The
managing of sub-tasks should be taken over by
the project leader. The newer the project,
the more difficult the prediction of success.
Therefore, the results can only be rated and
controlled by a leader who can evaluate the
working processes because they are involved
in the R&D process. This leads to the first
proposition:
Proposition 1a: Successful R&D project
leaders carry out decision-making, instructing, controlling, and initiating tasks and,
additionally, actively participate in the
project.
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Similarly, the employees need to overcome
the principle of specialization. Due to the
novelty of the project, unexpected outcomes
will occur. Hence, close communication and
co-operation among all employees is essential.
This leads to:
Proposition 1b: Successful R&D project
organizations combine project members
into one team which is characterized by
overlapping fields of responsibilities and
a common interest identity (Högl &
Gemünden, 1999; Amason, 1996).
After the job duties are defined, the next
proposition deals with the degree of decisionmaking authority.
Proposition 2: In the case of a dynamic
environment and highly motivated employees, successful R&D project leaders delegate
tasks to the employees who are most
competent.
Highly qualified employees will produce
lower costs for information acquisition. The
cost reduction will be significant enough to
compensate for the costs of delegating the
decision-making authority to the employees.
In a dynamic environment, the data that need
to be acquired are constantly changing. Laux
has mathematically proven this correlation
(Laux & Liermann, 1990; McGrath, 2001).
The delegation of decision-making authority
proves to be beneficial for R&D projects.
The dynamic of R&D projects allows the
organizational rules to become obsolete. Thus,
the company needs employees who are
capable of acting independently and without
fixed rules. According to Allport, these capabilities, or attributes, provide people with the
ability to process stimuli from the environment in such a way to derive consistent actions
from them (Heckhausen, 1989, p. 39). Proposition 3 describes the attributes which the selfdetermined employees, especially a project
leader, should have, in order to manage the
project tasks efficiently.
Proposition 3: Successful R&D project
leaders possess the following features:
• knowledge
• creativity
• experience
• self-confidence, a positive self-concept
• risk tolerance, ability to manage conflicts
• commitment, intrinsic motivation for
performance
• ability to assert oneself
• sympathy
• sense of responsibility.
These attributes result from transferring
Stogdill’s leadership characteristics into the
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situation of a complex project and also from
evaluation of other empirical studies (Judge
et al., 1999; Sternberg et al., 2004). Their theoretical foundation is the following: information and control costs can be reduced if project
leaders have expert knowledge. They are
better able to motivate their employees if they
themselves are dedicated and capable of tolerating uncertainty. In particular, co-ordination
costs can be saved in a matrix organization if
the project leader can be assertive amongst the
other department leaders.
Proposition 4: Successful R&D project
leaders use the leadership style of ‘management by objectives’. The goals are determined in co-operation with the employees
at the beginning of the project.
Since they can use their specific knowledge to
their benefit, project leaders can save on informational costs. The employee can choose his
way to individual success. This will increase
the motivation of scientists who like to work
independently.
A delegation of decision competencies is
connected to some risks. The project leader has
the risk that the employee will follow their
own personal goals rather than the goals of
the company while working, but also the
employee has the risk of failure. Additionally,
the employee does not know about their boss’s
loyalty in the event of a disappointment.
According to the Principal Agent Theory, the
first risk can be reduced if the employee takes
a share in the project’s success. Thus, their own
interests are connected to the goals of the organization. The second risk will be lower if the
team members have already gained experience in previous situations in which the project
leader has supported them.
Proposition 5: Motivational costs can be
saved when the employee is given incentives; thus, allowing them to be able to
satisfy Maslow’s postulated needs of provision of goods, safety, sense of community,
appreciation, and self-actualization with
their project task.
The next proposition deals with the longing
for support, which can be derived from several
Maslovian needs. Support of the superior is
shown by understanding when the results,
over the course of the project, turn out to
be different from those originally planned.
Instead of punishing the employees, the superior changes the plans and implements new
guidelines (Hauschildt, 1997, chapter 11). In
this regard, a continuous process control is
necessary not only for motivational reasons
but also because of cost efficiency. The production of a product that the market does not
© 2007 The Author
Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing
LEADERSHIP IN R&D PROJECTS
accept, which would create large losses, can be
impeded by a constant acclimatization of the
project plan to reality.
Proposition 6: Co-ordination costs as well
as motivational costs can be saved when a
continuous process control rather than a
rigid result control is conducted, by which
final results are demanded. These are sometimes difficult to achieve, especially in innovative projects. Team members, who may
explain deviations from planned data as in
a continuous process control, feel more
self-assured.
Hoog and Haslam expand the idea that the
project team becomes an identification group
for its members when it corresponds to their
own self-concept to a Social Identification
Theory of Leadership. Initially, they establish
the specifics of the composition of a group. A
professional tennis club can become the identification group for an ambitious tennis player
because many other ambitious players are also
mmbers, and, therefore, dedication for sports
is a typical member characteristic. Furthermore, they state that if the project leader fits
this prototype, then the team members will
willingly follow him because they can identify
with him (Haslam, 2001; Hoog, 2001).
Proposition 7: The employees will identify
with the project leader when s/he prototypically expresses the behaviour of her/his
team, especially their self-concept. This alleviates her/him from the execution of his/
her leadership functions and, additionally,
reduces the leadership costs.
451
Table 1. Project Success
Criteria of Success
Exceeding the
planned time
Exceeding the
planned costs
Economic expectations
fulfilled
Technical expectations
fulfilled
Average
1
yes
4,5
6
no
1
yes
5
6
no
1
yes
4
6
no
1
yes
4
6
no
p. 16). We analysed the data of the supervisors
because they seemed to be more objective,
supervisors having a better overview of the
projects.
The supervisors were asked to rate the leadership skills of an R&D project leader for a
specific project because the ability to remembering is better if you have to remember a
particular incident. If their ratings correspond
with our propositions and if the project was
assessed as being successful, then this can be
considered as an indication of the validity of
the propositions. If the necessary data were
available, regression analyses have also been
conducted.
Results
Methodology
Project Success
To test these propositions, 50 semi-structured
interviews were conducted at institutions
throughout Germany between the period of
September 2002 and March 2003. These are
institutions that have been short-listed for an
award for their innovative products by the
Saxon government. This ensured that R&D
projects were being actively conducted there.
As the projects were rather small, the team size
was small too: 5–15 members. The supervisors
of the project leaders, i.e. a member from the
steering committee, and the team members
were interviewed. But the project leaders were
not questioned in order to avoid possible
self-delusion. The validity of the results was
checked by comparing the answers of the
two groups. There were only slight deviations
between the two groups and, therefore, it is
sufficient with regard to validity to interpret
the results from only one group (Schuler, 1995,
The projects that the interviews are based on
can, on average, be classified as successful in
the sense that they essentially implemented
the guidelines of the plan (see Table 1).
© 2007 The Author
Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing
Job Duties and Delegation of Tasks
(Propositions 1, 2)
All projects were executed in teams, which
were presided over by the project leader. This
project leader would also assign developmental tasks. Therefore, Propositions 1a and 1b can
be considered valid. In order to determine the
distribution of the decision-making authorities, we asked who had to make the final decision, the project leader or a team member. Of
course, close communication has to precede
each decision (for the list of the tasks, see de
Pay (1995), p. 61). The answers are shown in
Table 2.
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Table 2. Delegation of the Project Decision-Making Authority
PL
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
TM
Feasibility study for the project
Conclusion of a contract for external projects
Practical implementation and definitions of the project
Co-ordinated determination of the connection of the project on the
line organization
Planning of the project goals
Planning of the time
Planning of the costs
Recruitment of the employees
Acknowledgement of the incentives for the employees
Searching for ideas
Evaluation of the ideas
Creation of the concept
Decision: stop or go
Creation of the prototype
Acceptance of the prototype
Handing over to production
Project control
Take responsibility for the project in the communication with
external authorities
Final invoice
Documentation
PL = project leader, TM = team member.
Volume 16
Most of the decisions are made solely by the
project leader. In contrast, the employees may
decide which ideas they choose to follow, how
they proceed with the creation of the prototype, and, ultimately, how they match their
concept with the requirements of the series
production during the developmental work,
and which results they document.
Proposition 2 can be considered valid
because employees were dealing with tasks for
which they had better knowledge.
Table 3. Effect of Characteristics (Dependent
Variable: Efficiency)
Leadership Skills (Proposition 3)
Note: level of significance: ** 0.05, * 0.10.
The assumption about leadership skills has
been verified on two levels: does a project
leader have to have special characteristics, and
if so, what kind of characteristics? Most of the
interviewees agreed that there are leadership
qualities and that they are important. Whether
these statements are valid was proven by
regression analysis. The results show that there
is a positive linear correlation between the
variables ‘efficiency’ (planned data are fulfilled, see Table 1) and ‘leadership characteristics’. Obviously, projects led by project leaders
with the appropriate attributes could maintain
their planned data. This correlation is significant (see Table 3).
In Table 4 these qualities are listed according to their rank of importance. It is apparently
more important for a project leader to understand the project in detail than to possess all
of the leadership qualities. The reason is the
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2007
Independent variable
Specification
Constant
Characteristics
R2 = 4.9
F-value = 3.52
No. of investigations: 48
4.2**
0.2*
© 2007 The Author
Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing
LEADERSHIP IN R&D PROJECTS
453
Table 4. Leadership Qualities
Table 5. Management by Objectives
(Dependent Variable: Efficiency)
(MbO)
Rank
Independent variable
Knowledge
Creativity
Commitment; intrinsic motivation
Risk-tolerance, ability to manage
conflicts
Sense of responsibility
Sympathy
Self-confidence, positive self-concept
Ability to assert oneself in
communication with supervisor
Experience
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
novelty of the project. Given the fact that one
cannot fall back on experience as with a
routine project, the supervision should be conducted by an expert.
A survey of 215 companies with project
management, conducted by Keim (1997), confirmed that it is very important for a project
leader to show technical and managerial capabilities (Keim, 1997, p. 263).
The fact that the characteristic of sympathy
was assigned a lower rank is related to the fact
that the interviewees assumed the granting
of incentives to be more important than
showing sympathy. These incentives were
closely connected to the success of the project
(see Table 6), ensuring that the team members
worked hard to reach the project goals. As
most companies preferred the leadership style
of management by objectives, negotiations
about and controlling of these project goals
were important management devices.
Specification
Constant
MbO
R2 = 3.74
F-value = 3.10
No. of investigations: 54
3.5**
0.2*
Note: level of significance: ** 0.05, * 0.10.
Measures of Incentives (Proposition 5)
The statement that the employees are further
motivated when they can implement personal
goals within the project was tested through
two questions.
1. Are agreements made with the employees
about the goals that they can personally
realize by working on the project? In 90
percent of the cases there are such ‘goal
agreements’.
2. Are the listed measures of incentives in
Table 6 given, and which meaning will be
attributed to them?
Thus, these incentives are set by the companies
which satisfy every level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs – except for a flexible work schedule. This results from the fact that the projects
are conducted by firms. Their projects have to
fit in the product portfolio of the company.
Therefore, the R&D employees do not have
much flexibility either in regard to their R&D
topics or their working hours.
Process Control (Proposition 6)
Management by Objectives (Proposition 4)
All R&D project leaders execute the leadership
style of ‘management by objectives’. They
attach a great meaning to the definition of
goals in accordance with the employees – both
project goals as well as personal goals. Thereafter, these goals are independently pursued
by each team member. These statements could
be proven by a regression analysis.
As shown in Table 5, there is a significant
linear correlation between the independent
variable ‘leadership style: management by
objectives (MbO)’ and the dependent variable
‘efficiency’ (MbO is measured on a scale
from 1 = no to 6 = yes). Thus Proposition 4 is
confirmed.
© 2007 The Author
Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing
An open-ended question was posed to find out
how the control is conducted. The interpretation of heterogeneous answers shows that a
process control is normally performed which
is conducted as follows. At certain points in
time – for the most part at the beginning of the
week – the sub-tasks are determined and distributed to the employees. In periodical, short
phases the project leader checks on their
accomplishment. In this way, the project leader
always maintains a close eye on the achievement of further specified milestone results.
The project leader uses their specialized
knowledge for a contextual examination.
Would they have done it the same way? Interesting but not urgent questions are saved in a
dataset to be analysed as soon as time permits.
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Table 6. Measurement of Incentives for the Employees
Category
Personal development
Tangible incentives
Social status
Flexibility
Measures
Relevance (average)
– Presentation on the project
– Advanced training
1 2 3 4 5 6
irrelevant
relevant
– Interest
– Bonus for a successful project
– Salary increase
1 2 3 4 5 6
irrelevant
relevant
– Promotion
– Recognition
– Permanent contract
1 2 3 4 5 6
irrelevant
relevant
– Flexible work schedule
– Time for personal research
1 2 3 4 5 6
irrelevant
relevant
Table 7. Group Identification (GI) (Dependent
Variable: Efficiency)
Independent variable
Constant
GI
p-value
No. of investigations: 49
Specification
0
-0.001
0.99
If necessary, the planning data are adjusted to
the altered requirements.
they must be assertive amongst the management and the customers, they also have
to consider their goals. It is therefore
required that they are able to maintain a
balance of the interests among all three
groups. Neither for their own interest, nor
for the company’s interest, can they solely
follow their employees’ wishes (Mumford
et al., 2002, p. 738: he writes that a leader
must play multiple roles).
2. If project leaders and the group are too
close, the phenomenon ‘group think’ might
occur. The group might no longer be open
to proposals nor criticism. The quality of the
project will go down which is damaging to
the interests of the company (Schulz-Hardt,
1997).
Prototypical Leader (Proposition 7)
The assumption of a prototypical project
leader was tested by the question: ‘How strong
should each team member identify with his
project leader?’ (Group identification). Later,
the correlation between these answers and
the dependent variable ‘efficiency’ was investigated through a regression analysis. As can
be seen in Table 7, there is no significant correlation between these two variables.
These calculations are not sufficient to
disprove the thesis of the ‘prototypical project leader’. However, two arguments tend to
imply the opposite:
1. Project leaders are not only interested in
realizing the wishes of their employees. As
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How can this danger of too close an integration, which is high according to the statements
of the interviewees, be removed? Some possibilities are suggested in Figure 2.
On the one hand, Ollila’s advice should be
adopted. A project leader should take some
time to reflect on their leadership style and the
group processes (Ollila, 2000). On the other
hand, they should implement actions such as
gatekeepers, control measures and substituting team members. The last measure is not
considered to be beneficial by the interviewees, probably because of a loss of specialized knowledge.
In summary, one can characterize the relationship between the project leader and their
© 2007 The Author
Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing
LEADERSHIP IN R&D PROJECTS
455
Unfortunately, no statements can be made
regarding the charismatic leadership style
because the interviewees did not consider this
leadership style to be appropriate for their
projects which only had a low level of novelty.
Therefore, future research needs to be conducted on this leadership style, especially on
the relationships between charismatic and
transactional leadership styles. The leader–
employees relationship should also be further
analysed.
Relevance
4,5
4
3,5
3
2,5
2
1,5
1
0,5
0
a
b
c
d
Indication
Key:
a = Risk of groupthink
b = Control through external instances
c = Substitution of team members
d = Gatekeeper
Figure 2. Instruments Against Groupthink
employees as follows: project leaders must be
accepted as the leader by their employees.
According to Heider’s Attribution Theory, the
prerequisites for acceptance are that project
leaders shows capability and commitment
(Heckhausen, 1989, pp. 397f). Conversely, it is
not necessary that they prototypically reflect
the self-concept of the employees.
Conclusion
Based on the empirical surveys, six out of
seven propositions seem to hold in the
German institutions where our empirical data
were gathered. Confirming the recent literature, a successful R&D project leader has the
following profile: s/he should possess leadership qualities; in addition to the leadership
functions, s/he should contribute to the
project; s/he should lead by means of ‘management by objectives’; leave the decisions of
the projects in which the employees have more
of an understanding to the employees; continuously control the completion of the tasks;
provide incentives for the project; and s/he
should obtain acceptance as the project leader
from the employees through commitment and
specialized knowledge. Based on these findings management can be recommended to:
• carefully recruit R&D project leaders
making sure that they possess the necessary
attributes, and
• give each project leader the freedom to
determine the project structure.
© 2007 The Author
Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing
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Diana
Grosse
(diana.grosse@bwl.tufreiberg.de) is a professor of Business
Administration at the Technical University
of Freiberg. Her research area is the organization of routine and innovation projects;
her theoretical basis is institutional
economics.
© 2007 The Author
Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing