Abstract

This article focuses on several management literature, in connection with the subject, "how to manage research." There exist no single book which even partially describes the role of the manager in the business function of industrial research. However, a few well-chosen books will provide some insight into the role of the manager in industrial research and the role of industrial research in the process of innovation. The general principles of management apply in research operations just as they do in marketing and production operations. A manager of research operations must understand his researchers and must know how to create the conditions under which such motivation will most likely occur. Research management, or the executive leadership of research operations, is a complex and challenging occupation, but one which offers perhaps the greatest source of satisfaction in the business world. A vast research literature exists, written by mostly by successful practitioners who, have suffered the extremes of project failure and project success, who have planned, organized, and evaluated effort without the benefit of a discrete product, and who are thus qualified to speak of such matters.