ABSTRACT
Management of research and development (R&D) has emerged as a separate field of academic inquiry. This chapter discusses some of the issues of managing R&D in a developing country. For a developing country, India has a massive scientific research base. In terms of scientific and technical manpower it ranks the third in the world. R&D in the government sector is primarily concentrated in industrial, agricultural, medical, space, atomic, electronics, defense, and more environmental research. Expectations from R&D investments in different sectors vary. Even within government R&D organizations one can discern differences. R&D management theories, which have evolved in the developed world, are usually based on two assumptions of effectiveness. These are the assumption that new product development for competitive market-share reasons is a necessity and the assumption that cost-reductions to aim at becoming the lowest-cost producer in the industry are another way of providing competitive advantage.
