Research And Development As An Instrument Of Organizational Effectiveness

The organization in the 21st century is a fast-paced, dynamic, highly stimulating environment which brings a large number of benefits and opportunities to those who work within it. 

Organizations around the world transform themselves for effectiveness to enhance competition that is based on research and development, their ability to exploit change management is defined as ‘the continuous process of aligning an organization with its marketplace and doing it more responsively and efficiently than competitors (Berger, 2007) 

The complexity and competiveness of today’s business environment requires that companies continuously raise the bar on their effectiveness though research and development top performance increasingly demands excellence in all areas, including leadership, productivity, process improvement and capacity enhancement (knowledge, skills, abilities and competencies).    

According to research, there are some directions to improve organizational effectiveness apart from research and development namely:

Organizational effectiveness has been one of the most extensively researched issues since the early development of organizational theory. (Woodman & Pasmore, 1991). This research is concern with the effect of research and development to organizational effectiveness. 

Research which overtime turned to research and development and held the central place in discourses and policies on science, technology and innovation. Research and Development also called Research and Technical Development or Research and Technological Development in Europe, is a specific group of activities within a business. The activities that are classified as research and development differ from organization to organization, but there are two primary models. In one model, the primary function of research and development is to develop new products; in the other model, the primary function of research and development is to discover and create new knowledge about scientific and technological topics for the purpose of uncovering and enabling development of valuable new products, processes and services to enhance effectiveness. Under both models, research and development differs from the vast majority of an organization’s activities which are intended to yield nearly immediate profits for immediate improvements in operations and involve little uncertainty as to return on investment. (Cameron & Whetten, 1983).

Present-day Research and Development is a core part of the modern business world, where major decisions in the organizations are made base on research and development. Research and development is of great importance in Organization as the level of competition, production processes and methods are rapidly increasing hence affecting the organizational effectiveness.

In general, it has been found that there is a positive relationship between research and development organization productivity across all sectors, but that this positive relationship is much stronger in high-tech organization than in low-tech organization. (Luthan, 1989). Research and development is one of the means by which organization can experience growth by developing new products or processes to improve and expand their operations thus enhancing organization effectiveness.

In developed and developing countries Governments are actively involved in the promotion of science and technology, through investments in research and development.

These days, Research and development is a core part of the modern business world (organizations). Decisions in organizations are made, based on research and developments; this is necessary due to continuous change and new developments in technology, as well as other part of business and the changing preference of customers. Without research and development, an organization must rely on strategic alliances, acquisitions and networks to tap into the innovations of others (Johansson, 2008).

Research and Development is of great importance in organization as the level of competition, production processes and methods are rapidly increasing. It is of special importance in an organization to keep an eagle eye on competitors and customers in order to keep pace with modern trends and analyse the needs, demands and desires of the customers.

Research and Development are very difficult to manage, because the defining feature of research is that the researchers do not know in advance exactly how to accomplish the desired result. As a result, higher research and development spending does not guarantee more creativity, higher profit, or greater market, share or improve the effectiveness of an organization, according to centre for strategic and international studies in Wikimedia (2014).

Research and Development activities are conducted by specialized units or centres within an organization, or can be outsourced to a contract research organization, Universities or state agencies.

Research has shown that firms with a persistent research and development strategy outperform and yield more than those with an irregular or no research and development program. (Raquel, Lesley & Marco, 2011).

Levy (2014) has found out that private research and development is more productive than government research and development. Econometric research almost never finds government research and development productive. (Levy, 2014).

This chapter discusses the methodology adopted for this project under the following sub-headings:

For the purpose of this study, the descriptive survey research design (carried out) ex-post facto was adopted. Ex-post facto is a systematic empirical study in which the researcher does not in any way control or manipulate independent variables because the situation for study already exists or has taken place. The researcher cannot manipulate the independent variables because they cannot be naturally manipulated. (Asika, 2012).  The design is suitable for this study and therefore adopted to generate quantitative data from necessary sources.   

The population for this study comprise the employee of Landover Nigeria Limited, Lagos State.

The study adopted the systematic sampling procedure. For the purpose of this study, one hundred and fifty employees were randomly selected. The study population included employees of the organization. The sample for this study included 150 randomly selected employees.

The researcher designed a questionnaire which was used to collect information from one hundred and fifty employees. The copies of questionnaire were divided into two sections, (A and B).

Section A collected bio-data of respondents while section B collected information on Research and Development as an instrument of organizational effectiveness. The section B of the questionnaire was based on five point Likert Scale i.e. Effective, Somehow Effective, Neutral, Somehow Ineffective, Ineffective.